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AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 



IV' 



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AN INTRODUCTION TO 
PHILOSOPHY 



BY 



GEORGE STUART FULLERTON 



ii PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 

i 



NEW YORK 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1906 

AU rights reserved 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 16 1906 

r^ Cocyright Entry . 

OtJr.fU.'Jol-' 

CLASS \ XXc, No. 
COPY B. 






Copyright, 1906, 

By the macmillan company. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1906. 



WorfaDolJ P«S0 

J, S, Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass,, U.S.A. 



V* 



h PREFACE 



o 



As there cannot be said to be a beaten path in philosophy, 
and as "Introductions" to the subject differ widely from one 
another, it is proper that I should give an indication of the 
scope of the present volume. 

It undertakes : — 

1. To point out what the word "philosophy" is made to 
cover in our universities and colleges at the present day, and 
to show why it is given this meaning. 

2. To explain the nature of reflective or philosophical 
thinking, and to show how it differs from common thought 
and from science. 

3. To give a general view of the main problems with 
which philosophers have felt called upon to deal. 

4. To give an account of some of the more important types 
of philosophical doctrine which have arisen out of the con- 
sideration of such problems. 

5. To indicate the relation of philosophy to the so-called 
philosophical sciences, and to the other sciences. 

6. To show, finally, that the study of philosophy is of 
value to us all, and to give some practical admonitions on 
spirit and method. Had these admonitions been impressed 
upon me at a time when I was in especial need of guidance, 
I feel that they would have spared me no little anxiety and 
confusion of mind. For this reason, I recommend them to 
the attention of the reader. 

Such is the scope of my book. It aims to tell what phi- 
losophy is. It is not its chief object to advocate a particular 
type of doctrine. At the same time, as it is impossible to 
treat of the problems of philosophy except from some point 



vi Preface 

of view, it will be found that, in Chapters III to XI, a doc- 
trine is presented. It is the same as that presented much 
more in detail, and with a greater wealth of reference, in my 
" System of Metaphysics," which was published a short time 
ago. In the Notes in the back of this volume, the reader 
will find references to those parts of the larger work which 
treat of the subjects more briefly discussed here. It will be 
helpful to the teacher to keep the larger work on hand, and 
to use more or less of the material there presented as his 
undergraduate classes discuss the chapters of this one. Other 
references are also given in the Notes, and it may be profit- 
able to direct the attention of students to them. 

The present book has been made as clear and simple as 
possible, that no unnecessary difficulties may be placed in 
the path of those who enter upon the thorny road of philo- 
sophical reflection. The subjects treated are deep enough 
to demand the serious attention of any one ; and they are 
subjects of fascinating interest. That they are treated simply 
and clearly does not mean that they are treated superficially. 
Indeed, when a doctrine is presented in outline and in a brief 
and simple statement, its meaning may be more readily 
apparent than when it is treated more exhaustively. For 
this reason, I especially recommend, even to those who are 
well acquainted with philosophy, the account of the external 
world contained in Chapter IV. 

For the doctrine I advocate I am inclined to ask especial 
consideration on the ground that it is, on the whole, a justi- 
fication of the attitude taken by the plain man toward the 
world in which he finds himself. The experience of the race 
is not a thing that we may treat lightly. 

Thus, it is maintained that there is a real external world 
presented in our experience — not a world which we have a 
right to regard as the sensations or ideas of any mind. It 
is maintained that we have evidence that there are minds 
in certain relations to that world, and that we can, within 



Preface vii 

certain limits, determine these relations. It is pointed out that 
the plain man's belief in the activity of his mind and his 
notion of the significance of purposes and ends are not with- 
out justification. It is indicated that theism is a reasonable 
doctrine, and it is held that the human will is free in the only 
proper sense of the word "freedom." Throughout it is taken 
for granted that the philosopher has no private system of 
weights and measures, but must reason as other men reason, 
and must prove his conclusions in the same sober way. 

I have written in hopes that the book may be of use to 
undergraduate students. They are often repelled by phi- 
losophy, and I cannot but think that this is in part due to 
the dry and abstract form in which philosophers have too 
often seen fit to express their thoughts. The same thoughts 
can be set forth in plain language, and their significance 
illustrated by a constant reference to experiences which we 
all have — experiences which must serve as the foundation 
to every theory of the mind and the world worthy of serious 
consideration. 

But there are many persons who cannot attend formal 
courses of instruction, and who, nevertheless, are interested 
in philosophy. These, also, I have had in mind ; and I have 
tried to be so clear that they could read the work with profit 
in the absence of a teacher. 

Lastly, I invite the more learned, if they have found my 
" System of Metaphysics " difficult to understand in any part, 
to follow the simple statement contained in the chapters 
above alluded to, and then to return, if they will, to the more 
bulky volume. 

GEORGE STUART FULLERTON. 

New York, 1906. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER I 

The Meaning of the Word "Philosophy" in the Past and 
IN the Present 

PAGE 

I. The Beginnings of Philosophy. — 2. The Greek Philosophy at its 
Height. — 3. Philosophy as a Guide to Life. — 4. Philosophy in the 
Middle Ages. — 5. The Modern Philosophy. — 6. What Philosophy 
means in our Time i 

CHAPTER II 

Common Thought, Science, and Reflective Thought 

7. Common Thought. — 8. Scientific Knowledge. — 9. Mathematics. 

— 10. The Science of Psychology. — il. Reflective Thought . . 18 

PART II 
PROBLEMS TOUCHING THE EXTERNAL WORLD 

CHAPTER III 

Is there an External World? 

12. How the Plain Man thinks he knows the World. — 13. The Psy- 
chologist and the External World. — 14. The " Telephone Exchange " 32 

CHAPTER IV 

Sensations and "Things" 

15. Sense and Imagination. — x6. May we call "Things" Groups of 
Sensations? — 17. The Distinction between Sensations and "Things." 

— 18. The Existence of Material Things ...... 45 



X Contents 



CHAPTER V 

Appearances and Realities 

PAGE 

19. Things and their Appearances. — 20. Real Things. — 21. Ultimate 

Real Things. — 22. The Bugbear of the " Unknowable " • • • 59 

CHAPTER VI 

Of Space 

23. What we are supposed to know about It. — 24. Space as Necessary 
and Space as Infinite, — 25. Space as Infinitely Divisible. — 26. What 
is Real Space? 73 

CHAPTER VII 

Of Time 

27. Time as Necessary, Infinite, and Infinitely Divisible. — 28. The Prob- 
lem of Past, Present, and Future. — 29. What is Real Time? . . 88 

PART III 

PROBLEMS TOUCHING THE MIND 

CHAPTER VIII 

What is the Mind? 

30. Primitive Notions of Mind. — 31, The Mind as Immaterial. — 
32. Modern Common Sense Notions of the Mind. — 33. The Psycholo- 
gist and the Mind. — 34. The Metaphysician and the Mind . . 100 

CHAPTER IX 

Mind and Body 

35. Is the Mind in the Body? — 36. The Doctrine of the Interac- 
tionist. — 37. The Doctrine of the Paralielist. — 38. In what Sense 
Mental Phenomena have a Time and Place. — 39. Objections to 
Parallelism 1x5 

CHAPTER X 

How WE know there are Other Minds 

40. Ts it Certain that we know It? — 41. The Argument for Other 
Minds. — 42. What Other Minds are there? — 43. The Doctrine of 
Mind-stuff 133 



Contents xi 



CHAPTER XI 

Other Problems of World and Mind 

PAGE 

44. Is the Material World a Mechanism? — 45. The Place of Mind 
in Nature. — 46. The Order of Nature and "Free-will." — 47. The 
Physical World and the Moral World 147 



PART IV 

SOME TYPES OF PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY 

CHAPTER XII 

Their Historical Background 

48, The Doctrine of Representative Perception. — 49. The Step to Ideal- 
ism. — 50. The Revolt of "Common Sense." — 51, The Critical 
Philosophy 165 

CHAPTER XIII 

Realism and Idealism 

52. Realism. — 53. Idealism 181 



CHAPTER XIV 

Monism and Dualism 

54. The Meaning of the Words. — 55. Materialism. — 56. Spiritual- 
ism. — 57. The Doctrine of the One Substance. — 58. Dualism. — 
59. Singularism and Pluralism . . , . . . . -193 

CHAPTER XV 

Rationalism, Empiricism, Criticism, and Critical Empiricism 

60. Rationalism. — 61. Empiricism. — 62. Criticism. — 63. Critical Em- 
piricism. — 64. Pragmatism 206 

PART V 

THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES 

CHAPTER XVI 

Logic 

65, Introductory: the Philosophical Sciences. — 66. The Traditional 

Logic. — 67. The " Modern " Logic. — 68. Logic and Philosophy . 223 



xii Contents 



CHAPTER XVII 

Psychology 

{>AGE 

69. Psychology and Philosophy. — 70. The Double Affiliation of Psy- 
chology 230 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Ethics and Esthetics 

71. Common Sense Ethics. — 72. Ethics and Philosophy. — 73. Es- 
thetics 236 

CHAPTER XIX 

Metaphysics 
74. What is Metaphysics ? — 75. Epistemology 244 

CHAPTER XX 

The Philosophy of Religion 
76. Religion and Reflection, — 77. The Philosophy of Religion . . 250 

CHAPTER XXI 

Philosophy and the Other Sciences 

78. The Philosophical and the Non-philosophical Sciences. — 79. The study 

of Scientific Principles and Methods ....... 255 

PART VI 

ON THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 

CHAPTER XXII 

The Value of the Study of Philosophy 

80. The Question of Practical Utility. — 81. Why Philosophical Studies 

are Useful. — 82. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Religion . . 260 

CHAPTER XXIII 

Why we should study the History of Philosophy 

83. The Prominence given to the Subject. — 84. The Especial Im- 
portance of Historical Studies to Reflective Thought. — 85. The Value 
of Different Points of View. — 86. Philosophy as Poetry and Philosophy 
as Science. — 87. How to read the History of Philosophy . . . 273 



Contents xiii 

CHAPTER XXIV 

Some Practical Admonitions 

PAGE 

88. Be prepared to enter upon a New Way of Looking at Things. — 89. Be 
willing to consider Possibilities which at first strike one as Absurd. — 
90. Do not have too much Respect for Authority. — 91. Remember 
that Ordinary Rules of Evidence Apply. — 92. Aim at Clearness and 
Simplicity. — 93. Do not hastily accept a Doctrine .... 288 

NOTES 305 



AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 

I. INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER I 

THE MEANING OF THE WORD "PHH^OSOPHY" IN THE 
PAST AND IN THE PRESENT 

I MUST warn the reader at the outset that the title of this 
chapter seems to promise a great deal more than he will find 
carried out in the chapter itself. To tell all that philosophy 
has meant in the past, and all that it means to various classes of 
men in the present, would be a task of no small magnitude, and 
one quite beyond the scope of such a volume as this. But it is 
not impossible to give within small compass a brief indication, at 
least, of what the word once signified, to show how its significa- 
tion has undergone changes, and to point out to what sort of a 
disciphne or group of disciplines educated men are apt to apply 
the word, notwithstanding their differences of opinion as to the 
truth or falsity of this or that particular doctrine. Why certain 
subjects of investigation have come to be grouped together and 
to be regarded as falling within the province of the philosopher, 
rather than certain other subjects, will, I hope, be made clear 
in the body of the work. Only an indication can be given in 
this chapter. 

I. The Beginnings of Philosophy. — The Greek historian 
Herodotus (484-424 s.c.) appears to have been the first to use 
the verb "to philosophize." He makes Croesus tell Solon how 



2 An IntrodMctio7i to Philosophy 

he has heard that he ''from a desire of knowledge has, philoso- 
phizing, journeyed through many lands." The word "philoso- 
phizing" seems to indicate that Solon pursued knowledge for 
its own sake, and was what we call an investigator. As for the 
word "philosopher" (etymologically, a lover of wisdom), a 
certain somewhat unreliable tradition traces it back to Pythag- 
oras (about 582-500 B.C.). As told by Cicero, the story is 
that, in a conversation with Leon, the ruler of Phlius, in the 
Peloponnesus, he- described himself as a philosopher, and said 
that his business was an investigation into the nature of things. 

At any rate, both the words "philosopher" and "philosophy" 
are freely used in the writings of the disciples of Socrates (470- 
399 B.C.), and it is possible that he was the first to make use of 
them. The seeming modesty of the title philosopher — for 
etymologically it is a modest one, though it has managed to 
gather a very different signification with the lapse of time — ■ 
the modesty of the title would naturally appeal to a man who 
claimed so much ignorance as Socrates ; and Plato represents 
him as distinguishing between the lover of wisdom and the 
wise, on the ground that God alone may be called wise. From 
that date to this the word " philosopher " has remained with us, 
and it has meant many things to many men. But for centuries 
the philosopher has not been simply the investigator, nor has he 
been simply the lover of wisdom. 

An investigation into the origin of words, however interesting 
in itself, can tell us httle of the uses to which words are put after 
they have come into being. If we turn from etymology to his- 
tory, and review the labors of the men whom the world has 
agreed to call philosophers, we are struck by the fact that those 
who head the list chronologically appear to have been occupied 
with crude physical speculations, with attempts to guess what 
the world is made out of, rather than with that somewhat vague 
something that we call philosophy to-day. 

Students of the history of philosophy usually begin their 



The Meaning of the Word " Philosophy " 3 

studies with the speculations of the Greek philosopher Thales 
(b. 624 B.C.)- We are told that he assumed water to be the uni- 
versal principle out of which all things are made, and that he 
maintained that "all things are full of gods." We find that 
Anaximander, the next in the list, assumed as the^ source out 
of which all things proceed and that to which they all return 
"the infinite and indeterminate"; and that Anaximenes, who 
was perhaps his pupil, took as his principle the all-embracing 
air. 

This trio constitutes the Ionian school of philosophy, the 
earliest of the Greek schools ; and one who reads for the first 
time the few vague statements which seem to constitute the 
sum of their contributions to human knowledge is impelled to 
wonder that so much has been made of the men. 

This wonder disappears, however, when one realizes that the 
appearance of these thinkers was really a momentous thing. 
For these men turned their faces away from the poetical and 
mythologic way of accounting for things, which had obtained up 
to their time, and set their faces toward Science. Aristotle 
shows us how Thales may have been led to the formulation of 
his main thesis by an observation of the phenomena of nature. 
Anaximander saw in the world in which he lived the result of 
a process of evolution. Anaximenes explains the coming into 
being of fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth, as due to a condensa- 
tion and expansion of the universal principle, air. The boldness 
of their speculations we may explain as due to a courage born 
of ignorance, but the explanations they offer are scientific in 
spirit, at least. 

Moreover, these men do not stand alone. They are the ad- 
vance guard of an army whose latest representatives are the 
men who are enlightening the world at the present day. The 
evolution of science — taking that word in the broad sense to 
mean organized and systematized knowledge — must be traced 
in the works of the Greek philosophers from Thales down. 



4 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Here we have the source and the rivulet to which we can trace 
back the mighty stream which is flowing past our own doors. 
Apparently insignificant in its beginnings, it must still for a 
while seem insignificant to the man who follows with an unre- 
flective eye the course of the current. 

It would take me too far afield to give an account of the 
Greek schools which immediately succeeded the Ionic: to tell 
of the Pythagoreans, who held that all things were constituted 
by numbers; of the Eleatics, who held that "only Being is," 
and denied the possibility of change, thereby reducing the shift- 
ing panorama of the things about us to a mere delusive world 
of appearances; of Heraclitus, who was so impressed by the 
constant flux of things that he summed up his view of nature 
in the words: "Everything flows"; of Empedocles, who found 
his explanation of the world in the combination of the four 
elements, since become traditional, earth, water, fire, and air ; 
of Democritus, who developed a materialistic atomism which 
reminds one strongly of the doctrine of atoms as it has ap- 
peared in modern science ; of Anaxagoras, who traced the system 
of things to the setting in order of an infinite multiplicity of 
different elements, — "seeds of things," — which setting in 
order was due to the activity of the finest of things. Mind. 

It is a delight to discover the illuminating thoughts which 
came to the minds of these men; and, on the other hand, it is 
amusing to see how recklessly they launched themselves on 
boundless seas when they were unprovided with chart and com- 
pass. They were like brilliant children, who know little of the 
dangers of the great world, but are ready to undertake anything. 
These philosophers regarded all knowledge as their province, 
and did not despair of governing so great a realm. They were 
ready to explain the whole world and everything in it. Of 
course, this can only mean that they had little conception of 
how much there is to explain, and of what is meant by scientific 
explanation. 



The Meaning of the Word " Philosophy " 5 

It is characteristic of this series of philosophers that their 
attention was directed very largely upon the external world. 
It was natural that this should be so. Both in the history of 
the race and in that of the individual, we find that the attention 
is seized first by material things, and that it is long before a 
clear conception of the mind and of its knowledge is arrived at. 
Observation precedes reflection. When we come to think 
definitely about the mind, we are all apt to make use of notions 
which we have derived from our experience of external things. 
The very words we use to denote mental operations are in many 
instances taken from this outer realm. We "direct" the atten- 
tion; we speak of "apprehension," of "conception," of "in- 
tuition." Our knowledge is "clear" or "obscure"; an oration 
is "brilliant"; an emotion is "sweet" or "bitter." What 
wonder that, as we read over the fragments that have come down 
to us from the Pre-Socratic philosophers, we should be struck 
by the fact that they sometimes leave out altogether and some- 
times touch Hghtly upon a number of those things that we regard 
to-day as peculiarly within the province of the philosopher. 
They busied themselves with the world as they saw it, and 
certain things had hardly as yet come definitely within their 
horizon. 

2. The Greek Philosophy at its Height. — The next succeeding 
period sees certain classes of questions emerge into prominence 
which had attracted comparatively little attention from the 
men of an earlier day. Democritus of Abdera, to whom refer- 
ence has been made above, belongs chronologically to this 
latter period, but his way of thinking makes us class him with 
the earlier philosophers. It was characteristic of these latter 
that they assumed rather naively that man can look upon the 
world and can know it, and can by thinking about it succeed in 
giving a reasonable account of it. That there may be a differ- 
ence between the world as it really is and the world as it appears 
to man, and that it may be impossible for man to attain to a 



6 An Introduction to Philosophy 

knowledge of the absolute truth of things, does not seem to have 
occurred to them. 

The fifth century before Christ was, in Greece, a time of in- 
tense intellectual ferment. One is reminded, in reading of it, 
of the splendid years of the Renaissance in Italy, of the awaken- 
ing of the human mind to a vigorous life which cast off the bonds 
of tradition and insisted upon the right of free and unfettered 
development. Athens was the center of this intellectual ac- 
tivity. 

In this century arose the Sophists, public teachers who busied 
themselves with all departments of human knowledge, but 
seemed to lay no little emphasis upon certain questions that 
touched very nearly the life of man. Can man attain to truth 
at all — to a truth that is more than a mere truth to him, a 
seeming truth? Whence do the laws derive their authority? 
Is there such a thing as justice, as right? It was with such 
questions as these that the Sophists occupied themselves, and 
such questions as these have held the attention of mankind 
ever since. When they make their appearance in the life of a 
people or of an individual man, it means that there has been 
a rebirth, a birth into the life of reflection. 

When Socrates, that greatest of teachers, felt called upon to 
refute the arguments of these men, he met them, so to speak, 
on their own ground, recognizing that the subjects of which they 
discoursed were, indeed, matter for scientific investigation. 
His attitude seemed to many conservative persons in his day 
a dangerous one; he was regarded as an innovator; he taught 
men to think and to raise questions where, before, the traditions 
of the fathers had seemed a sufficient guide to men's actions. 

And, indeed, he could not do otherwise. Men had learned 
to reflect, and there had come into existence at least the begin- 
nings of what we now sometimes rather loosely call the mental 
and moral sciences. In the works of Socrates' disciple Plato 
(428-347 B.C.) and in those of Plato's disciple Aristotle (384- 



The Meaning of the Word " Philosophy " 7 

322 B.C.), abundant justice is done to these fields of human 
activity. These two, the greatest among the Greek philosophers, 
differ from each other in many things, but it is worthy of remark 
that they both seem to regard the whole sphere of human 
knowledge as their province. 

Plato is much more interested in the moral sciences than in 
the physical, but he, nevertheless, feels called upon to give an 
account of how the world was made and out of what sort of 
elements. He evidently does not take his own account very 
seriously, and recognizes that he is on uncertain ground. But 
he does not consider the matter beyond his jurisdiction. 

As for Aristotle, that wonderful man seems to have found it 
possible to represent worthily every science known to his time, 
and to have marked out several new fields for his successors 
to cultivate. His philosophy covers physics, cosmology, zoology, 
logic, metaphysics, ethics, psychology, politics and economics, 
rhetoric and poetics. 

Thus we see that the task of the philosopher was much the 
same at the period of the highest development of the Greek 
philosophy that it had been earlier. He was supposed to give 
an account of the system of things. But the notion of what it 
means to give an account of the system of things had necessarily 
undergone some change. The philosopher had to be something 
more than a natural philosopher. 

3. Philosophy as a Guide to Life. — At the close of the fourth 
century before Christ there arose the schools of the Stoics, the 
Epicureans, and the Skeptics. In them we seem to find a 
somewhat new conception of philosophy — philosophy appears 
as chiefly a guide to life. The Stoic emphasizes the necessity of 
living "according to nature," and dwells upon the character of 
the wise man; the Epicurean furnishes certain selfish maxims 
for getting through life as pleasantly as possible ; the Skeptic 
counsels apathy, an indifference to all things, — blessed is he 
who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed. 



8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

And yet, when we examine more closely these systems, we 
find a conception of philosophy not really so very different 
from that which had obtained before. We do not find, it is 
true, that disinterested passion for the attainment of truth 
which is the glory of science. Man seems quite too much 
concerned with the problem of his own happiness or unhappi- 
ness ; he has grown morbid. Nevertheless, the practical maxims 
which obtain in each of these Sjystems are based upon a certain 
view of the system of things as a whole. 

The Stoic tells us of what the world consists; what was the 
beginning and what will be the end of things ; what is the rela- 
tion of the system of things to God. He develops a physics 
and a logic as well as a system of ethics. The Epicurean in- 
forms us that the world originated in a rain of atoms through 
space; he examines into the foundations of human knowledge; 
and he proceeds to make himself confortable in a world from 
which he has rem.oved those disturbing elements, the gods. 
The Skeptic decides that there is no such thing as truth, before 
he enunciates the dogma that it is not worth while to worry 
about anything. The philosophy of each school includes a 
view of the system of things as a whole. The philosopher still 
regarded the universe of knowledge as his province. 

4. Philosophy in the Middle Ages. — I cannot do more than 
mention Neo-Platonism, that half Greek and half Oriental 
system of doctrine which arose in the third century after Christ, 
the first system of importance after the schools mentioned above. 
But I must not pass it by without pointing out that the Neo- 
Platonic philosopher undertook to give an account of the origin, 
development, and end of the whole system of things. 

In the Middle Ages there gradually grew up rather a sharp 
distinction between those things that can be known through the 
unaided reason and those things that can only be known through 
a supernatural revelation. The term " philosophy " came to be 
synonymous with knowledge attained by the natural light of 



The Meaning of the Word " Philosophy " 9 

reason. This seems to imply some sort of a limitation to the 
task of the philosopher. Philosophy is not synonymous with 
all knowledge. 

But we must not forget to take note of the fact that philosophy, 
even with this limitation, constitutes a pretty wide field. It 
covers both the physical and the moral sciences. Nor should 
we omit to notice that the scholastic philosopher was at the 
same time a theologian. Albert the Great and St. Thomas 
Aquinas, the famous scholastics of the thirteenth century, had 
to write a ^' Summa Theologi(S," or system of theology, as well 
as to treat of the other departments of human knowledge. 

Why were these men not overwhelmed with the task set them 
by the tradition of their time? It was because the task was not, 
after all, so great as a modern man might conceive it to be. 
Gil Bias, in Le Sage's famous romance, finds it possible to become 
a skilled physician in the twinkling of an eye, when Dr. 
Sangrado has imparted to him the secret that the remedy for 
all diseases is to be found in bleeding the patient and in making 
him drink copiously of hot water. When little is known about 
things, it does not seem impossible for one man to learn that 
little. During the Middle Ages and the centuries preceding, 
the physical sciences had a long sleep. Men were much more 
concerned in the thirteenth century to find out what Aristotle 
had said than they were to address questions to nature. The 
special sciences, as we now know them, had not been called into 
existence. 

5. The Modern Philosophy. — The submission of men's 
minds to the authority of Aristotle and of the church gradually 
gave way. A revival of learning set in. Men turned first of 
all to a more independent choice of authorities, and then rose 
to the conception of a philosophy independent of authority, 
of a science based upon an observation of nature, of a science 
at first hand. The special sciences came into being. 

But the old tradition of philosophy as universal knowledge 



lO An Introduction to Philosophy 

remained. If we pass over the men of the transition period and 
turn our attention to Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Rene 
Descartes (1596-1650), the two who are commonly regarded as 
heading the Hst of the modern philosophers, we find both of 
them assigning to the philosopher an almost unlimited field. 

Bacon holds that philosophy has for its objects God, man, 
and nature, and he regards it as within his province to treat of 
'' philosophia prima'' (a sort of metaphysics, though he does 
not call it by this name), of logic, of physics and astronomy, of 
anthropology, in which he includes psychology, of ethics, and of 
politics. In short, he attempts to map out the whole field 
of human knowledge, and to tell those who work in this corner 
of it or in that how they should set about their task. 

As for Descartes, he writes of the trustworthiness of human 
knowledge, of the existence of God, of the existence of an ex- 
ternal world, of the human soul and its nature, of mathematics, 
physics, cosmology, physiology, and, in short, of nearly every- 
thing discussed by the men of his day. No man can accuse this 
extraordinary Frenchman of a lack of appreciation of the special 
sciences which were growing up. No one in his time had a 
better right to be called a scientist in the modern sense of the 
term. But it was not enough for him to be a mere mathemati- 
cian, or even a worker in the physical sciences generally. He 
must be all that has been mentioned above. 

The conception of philosophy as of a something that embraces 
all departments of human knowledge has not wholly passed 
away even in our day. I shall not dwell upon Spinoza (1632- 
1677), who believed it possible to deduce a world a priori with 
mathematical precision; upon Christian Wolff (1679-1754), 
who defined philosophy as the knowledge of the causes of what 
is or comes into being; upon Fichte (1762-1814), who believed 
that the philosopher, by mere thinking, could lay down the laws 
of all possible future experience; upon Schelling (1775-1854), 
who, without knowing anything worth mentioning about natural 



The Mea7img of the Word " Philosophy " 1 1 

science, had the courage to develop a system of natural philoso- 
phy, and to condemn such investigators as Boyle and Newton; 
upon Hegel (17 70-1831), who undertakes to construct the whole 
system of reality out of concepts, and who, with his immediate 
predecessors, brought philosophy for a while into more or less 
disrepute with men of a scientific turn of mind. I shall come 
down quite to our own times, and consider a man whose con- 
ception of philosophy has had and still has a good deal of in- 
fluence, especially with the general public — with those to whom 
philosophy is a thing to be taken up in moments of leisure, 
and cannot be the serious pursuit of a life. 

"Knowledge of the lowest kind," says Herbert Spencer, 
"is un-uni'fied knowledge ; Science is partially-unified knowledge ; 
Philosophy is completely-unified knowledge." ^ Science, he 
argues, means merely the family of the Sciences — stands for 
nothing more than the sum of knowledge formed of their con- 
tributions. Philosophy is the fusion of these contributions 
into a whole; it is knowledge of the greatest generality. In 
harmony with this notion Spencer produced a system of philoso- 
phy which includes the following: A volume entitled "First 
Principles," which undertakes to show what man can and what 
man cannot know; a treatise on the principles of biology; 
another on the principles of psychology; still another on the 
principles of sociology; and finally one on the principles of 
morality. To complete the scheme it would have been neces- 
sary to give an account of inorganic nature before going on to 
the phenomena of life, but our philosopher found the task too 
great and left this out. 

Now, Spencer was a man of genius, and one finds in his works 
many illuminating thoughts. But it is worthy of remark that 
those who praise his work in this or in that field are almost 
always men who have themselves worked in some other field 
and have an imperfect acquaintance with the particular field 

^ "First Principles," Part II, §37. 



12 An Introduction to Philosophy 

that they happen to be praising. The metaphysician finds the 
reasonings of the "First Principles" rather loose and inconclu- 
sive; the biologist pays little heed to the " Principles of Biology" ; 
the sociologist finds Spencer not particularly accurate or careful 
in the field of his predilection. He has tried to be a professor of 
all the sciences, and it is too late in the world's history for him 
or for any man to cope with such a task. In the days of Plato 
a man might have hoped to accomplish it. 

6. What Philosophy means in our Time. — It savors of temer- 
ity to write down such a title as that which heads the present 
section. There are men living to-day to whom philosophy 
means little else than the doctrine of Kant, or of Hegel, or of the 
brothers Caird, or of Herbert Spencer, or even of St. Thomas 
Aquinas, for we must not forget that many of the seminaries of 
learning in Europe and some in America still hold to the mediae- 
val church philosophy. 

But let me gather up in a few words the purport of what has 
been said above. Philosophy once meant the whole body of 
scientific knowledge. Afterward it came to mean the whole 
body of knowledge which could be attained by the mere light 
of human reason, unaided by revelation. The several special 
sciences sprang up, and a multitude of men have for a long 
time past devoted themselves to definite limited fields of inves- 
tigation with little attention to what has been done in other 
fields. Nevertheless, there has persisted the notion of a discipline 
which somehow concerns itself with the whole system of things, 
rather than with any limited division of that broad field. It is 
a notion not peculiar to the disciples of Spencer. There are 
many to whom philosophy is a '^Weltweisheit,^^ a world-wis- 
dom. Shall we say that this is the meaning of the word philoso- 
phy now? And if we do, how shall we draw a fine between 
philosophy and the body of the special sciences? 

Perhaps the most just way to get a preliminary idea of what 
philosophy means to the men of our time is to turn away for 



The Meaning of the Word "'Philosophy'''' 13 

the time being from the definition of any one man or group of 
men, and to ask ourselves what a professor of philosophy in an 
American or European university is actually supposed to teach. 

It is quite clear that he is not supposed to be an Aristotle. 
He does not represent all the sciences, and no one expects him 
to lecture on mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, 
zoology, botany, economics, poHtics, and various other dis- 
ciplines. There was a time when he might have been expected 
to teach all that men could know, but that time is long past. 

Nevertheless, there is quite a group of sciences which are 
regarded as belonging especially to his province; and although 
a man may devote a large part of his attention to some one 
portion of the field, he would certainly be thought remiss if 
he wholly neglected the rest. This group of sciences includes 
logic, psychology, ethics and aesthetics, metaphysics, and the 
history of philosophy. I have not included epistemology or 
the "theory of knowledge" as a separate discipline, for reasons 
which will appear later (Chapter XIX); and I have included the 
history of philosophy, because, whether we care to call this a 
special science or not, it constitutes a very important part of the 
work of the teacher of philosophy in our day. 

Of this group of subjects the student who goes to the uni- 
versity to study philosophy is supposed to know something 
before he leaves its walls, whatever else he may or may not 
know. 

It should be remarked, again, that there is commonly sup- 
posed to be a peculiarly close relation between philosophy and 
religion. Certainly, if any one about a university undertakes 
to give a course of lectures on theism, it is much more apt to 
be the professor of philosophy than the professor of mathematics 
or of chemistry. The man who has written an "Introduction to 
Philosophy," a "Psychology," a "Logic," and an "Outlines of 
Metaphysics" is ver}^ apt to regard it as his duty to add to the 
list a " Philosophy of ReKgion." The students in the theological 



14 A7i Introduction to Philosophy 

seminaries of Europe and America are usually encouraged, if 
not compelled, to attend courses in philosophy. 

Finally, it appears to be definitely accepted that even the dis- 
ciplines that we never think of classing among the philosophical 
sciences are not wholly cut off from a connection with philosophy. 
When we are occupied, not with adding to the stock of knowledge 
embraced within the sphere of any special science, but with an 
examination of the methods of the science, with, so to speak, 
a criticism of the foundations upon which the science rests, our 
work is generally recognized as philosophical. It strikes no one 
as odd in our day that there should be estabhshed a "Journal 
of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods," but we 
should think it strange if some one announced the intention to 
publish a "Journal of Philosophy and Comparative Anatomy." 
It is not without its significance that, when Mach, who had been 
professor of physics at Prague, was called (in 1895) to the 
University of Vienna to lecture on the history and theory of 
the inductive sciences, he was made, not professor of physics, 
but professor of philosophy. 

The case, then, stands thus: a certain group of disciplines is 
regarded as falling peculiarly within the province of the pro- 
fessor of philosophy, and the sciences which constitute it are 
frequently called the philosophical sciences ; moreover, it is 
regarded as quite proper that the teacher of philosophy should 
concern himself with the problems of religion, and should pry 
into the methods and fundamental assumptions of special 
sciences in all of which it is impossible that he should be an 
adept. The question naturally arises: Why has his task come 
to be circumscribed as it is? Why should he teach just these 
things and no others? 

To this question certain persons are at once ready to give an 
answer. There was a time, they argue, when it seemed possible 
for one man to embrace the whole field of human knowledge. 
But human knowledge grew; the special sciences were born; 



The Meaning of the Word " Philosophy " 15 

each concerned itself with a definite class of facts and developed 
its own methods. It became possible and necessary for a man 
to be, not a scientist at large, but a chemist, a physicist, a biolo- 
gist, an economist. But in certain portions of the great field 
men have met with peculiar difficulties; here it cannot be said 
that we have sciences, but rather that we have attempts at 
science. The philosopher is the man to whom is committed 
what is left when we have taken away what has been definitely 
established or is undergoing investigation according to approved 
scientific methods. He is Lord of the Uncleared Ground, and 
may wander through it in his compassless, irresponsible way, 
never feeling that he is lost, for he has never had any definite 
bearings to lose. 

Those who argue in this way support their case by pointing 
to the lack of a general consensus of opinion which obtains in 
many parts of the field which the philosopher regards as his 
own; and also by pointing out that, even within this field, 
there is a growing tendency on the part of certain sciences to 
separate themselves from philosophy and become independent. 
Thus the psychologist and the logician are sometimes very 
anxious to have it understood that they belong among the 
scientists and not among the philosophers. 

Now, this answer to the question that we have raised undoubt- 
edly contains some truth. As we have seen from the sketch 
contained in the preceding pages, the word philosophy was 
once a synonym for the whole sum of the sciences or what 
stood for such; gradually the several sciences have become 
independent and the field of the philosopher has been circum- 
scribed. We must admit, moreover, that there is to be found in 
a number of the special sciences a body of accepted facts which 
is without its analogue in philosophy. In much of his work 
the philosopher certainly seems to be walking upon more un- 
certain ground than his neighbors; and if he is unaware of 
that fact, it must be either because he has not a very nice sense 



1 6 An Introduction to Philosophy 

of what constitutes scientific evidence, or because he is carried 
away by his enthusiasm for some particular form of doctrine. 
. Nevertheless, it is just to maintain that the answer we are 
discussing is not a satisfactory one. For one thing, we find 
in it no indication of the reason why the particular group of 
disciplines with which the philosopher occupies himself has 
been left to him, when so many sciences have announced their 
independence. Why have not these, also, separated off and set 
up for themselves? Is it more difficult to work in these fields 
than in others? and, if so, what reason can be assigned for the 
fact? 

Take psychology as an instance. How does it happen that 
the physicist calmly develops his doctrine without finding it 
necessary to make his bow to philosophy at all, while the psy- 
chologist is at pains to explain that his book is to treat psychol- 
ogy as "a natural science," and will avoid metaphysics as much 
as possible? For centuries men have been interested in the phe- 
nomena of the human mind. Can anything be more open to 
observation than what passes in a man's own consciousness? 
Why, then, should the science of psychology lag behind? and 
why these endless disputes as to whether it can really be treated 
as a "natural science" at all? 

Again. May we assume that, because certain disciplines 
have taken a position of relative independence, therefore all 
the rest of the field will surely come to be divided up in the same 
way, and that there will be many special sciences, but no such 
thing as philosophy? It is hasty to assume this on no better 
evidence than that which has so far been presented. Before 
making up one's mind upon this point, one should take a care- 
ful look at the problems with which the philosopher occupies 
himself. 

A complete answer to the questions raised above can only be 
given in the course of the book, where the main problems of 
philosophy are discussed, and the several philosophical sciences 



The Meaning of the Word ''Philosophy'" 17 

are taken up and examined. But I may say, in anticipation, 
as much as this : — 

(i) Philosophy is reflective knowledge. What is meant by 
reflective knowledge will be explained at length in the next 
chapter. 

(2) The sciences which are grouped together as philosophical 
are those in which we are forced back upon the problems of 
reflective thought, and cannot simply put them aside. 

(3) The peculiar difliculties of reflective thought may account 
for the fact that these sciences are, more than others, a field 
in which we may expect to find disputes and differences of 
opinion. 

(4) We need not be afraid that the whole field of human 
knowledge will come to be so divided up into special sciences 
that philosophy will disappear. The problems with which the 
philosopher occupies himself are real problems, which present 
themselves unavoidably to the thoughtful mind, and it is not 
convenient to divide these up among the several sciences. 
This will become clearer as we proceed. 



CHAPTER II 

COMMON THOUGHT, SCIENCE, AND REFLECTIVE 
THOUGHT 

7. Common Thought. — Those who have given little atten- 
tion to the study of the human mind are apt to suppose that, 
when the infant opens its eyes upon the new world of objects 
surrounding its small body, it sees things much as they do 
themselves. They are ready to admit that it does not know 
much about things, but it strikes them as absurd for any one 
to go so far as to say that it does not see things — the things 
out there in space before its eyes. 

Nevertheless, the psychologist tells us that it requires quite 
a course of education to enable us to see things — not to have 
vague and unmeaning sensations, but to see things, things that 
are known to be touchable as well as seeable, things that are 
recognized as having size and shape and position in space. 
And he aims a still severer blow at our respect for the infant 
when he goes on to inform us that the little creature is as ignorant 
of itself as it is of things; that in its small world of as yet 
unorganized experiences there is no self that is distinguished 
from other things; that it may cry vociferously without know- 
ing who is uncomfortable, and may stop its noise without 
knowing who has been taken up into the nurse's arms and 
has experienced an agreeable change. 

This chaotic little world of the dawning Hfe is not our world, 
the world of common thought, the world in which we all live 
and move in maturer years; nor can we go back to it on the 
wings of memory. We seem to ourselves to have always lived 
in a world of things, — things in time and space, material things. 

iS 



Commofi Thought 1 9 

Among these things there is one of pecuHar interest, and which 
we have not placed upon a par with the rest, our own body, 
which sees, tastes, touches, other things. We cannot remember 
a time when we did not know that with this body are somehow 
bound up many experiences which interest us acutely; for ex- 
ample, experiences of pleasure and pain. Moreover, we seem 
always to have known that certain of the bodies which sur- 
round our own rather resemble our own, and are in important 
particulars to be distinguished from the general mass of bodies. 

Thus, we seem always to have been living in a world of things 
and to have recognized in that world the existence of ourselves 
and of other people. When we now think of " ourselves " and 
of " other people," we think of each of the objects referred to 
as possessing a mind. May we say that, as far back as we can 
remember, we have thought of ourselves and of other persons 
as possessing minds? 

Hardly. The young child does not seem to distinguish be- 
tween mind and body, and, in the vague and fragmentary pic- 
tures which come back to us from our early life, certainly this 
distinction does not stand out. The child may be the completest 
of egoists, it may be absorbed in itself and all that directly con- 
cerns this particular self, and yet it may make no conscious 
distinction between a bodily self and a mental, between mind 
and body. It does not explicitly recognize its world as a world 
that contains minds as well as bodies. 

But, however it may be with the child in the earlier stages 
of its development, we must all admit that the mature man 
does consciously recognize that the world in which he finds 
himself is a world that contains minds as well as bodies. It 
never occurs to him to doubt that there are bodies, and it never 
occurs to him to doubt that there are minds. 

Does he not perceive that he has a body and a mind ? Has 
he not abundant evidence that his mind is intimately related 
to his body ? When he shuts his eyes, he no longer sees, and 



20 An Introduction to Philosophy 

when he stops his ears, he no longer hears; when his body is 
bruised, he feels pain; when he wills to raise his hand, his body 
carries out the mental decree. Other men act very much as he 
does; they walk and they talk, they laugh and they cry, they 
work and they play, just as he does. In short, they act pre- 
cisely as though they had minds like his own. What more 
natural than to assume that, as he himself gives expression, by 
the actions of his body, to the thoughts and emotions in his 
mind, so his neighbor does the same ? 

We must not allow ourselves to underrate the plain man's 
knowledge either of bodies or of minds. It seems, when one 
reflects upon it, a sufficiently wonderful thing that a few frag- 
mentary sensations should automatically receive an interpreta- 
tion which conjures up before the mind a world of real things; 
that, for example, the little patch of color sensation which I 
experience when I turn my eyes toward the window should 
1 seem to introduce me at once to a world of material objects 
1 lying in space, clearly defined in magnitude, distance, and 
Idirection; that an experience no more complex should be the 
Ikey which should unlock for me the secret storehouse of another 
fmind, and lay before me a wealth of thoughts and emotions not 
my own. From the poor, bare, meaningless world of the dawn- 
ing intelligence to the world of common thought, a world in 
which real things with their manifold properties, things material 
and things mental, bear their part, is indeed a long step. 

And we should never forget that he who would go farther, 
he who would strive to gain a better knowledge of matter and 
of mind by the aid of science and of philosophical reflection, 
must begin his labors on this foundation which is common to us 
all. How else can he begin than by accepting and more critically 
examining the world as it seems revealed in the experience of 
the race ? 

8. Scientific Knowledge. — Still, the knowledge of the world 
which we have been discussing is rather indefinite, inaccurate, 



Science 2 1 

and unsystematic. It is a sufficient guide for common life, but 
its deficiencies may be made apparent. He who wishes to 
know matter and mind better cannot afford to neglect the 
sciences. 

Now, it is important to observe that although, when the 
plain man grows scientific, great changes take place in his 
knowledge of things, yet his way of looking at the mind and 
the world remains in general much what it was before. To 
prevent this statement from being misunderstood, I must 
explain it at some length. 

Let us suppose that the man in question takes up the study 
of botany. Need he do anything very different from what is 
done more imperfectly by every intelligent man who interests 
himself in plants ? There in the real material world before him 
are the same plants that he observed somewhat carelessly before. 
He must collect his information more systematically and must 
arrange it more critically, but his task is not so much to do some- 
thing different as it is to do the same thing much better. 

The same is evidently true of various other sciences, such 
as geology, zoology, physiology, sociology. Some men have 
much accurate information regarding rocks, animals, the func- 
tions of the bodily organs, the development of a given form of 
society, and other things of the sort, and other men have but 
little; and yet it is usually not difficult for the man who knows 
much to make the man who knows little understand, at least, 
what he is talking about. He is busying himself with things — 
the same things that interest the plain man, and of which the 
plain man knows something. He has collected information 
touching their properties, their changes, their relationships ; but 
to him, as to his less scientific neighbor, they are the same 
things they always were, — things that he has known from the 
days of childhood. 

Perhaps it will be admitted that this is true of such sciences 
as those above indicated, but doubted whether it is true of all 



22 An Introduction to Philosophy 

the sciences, even of all the sciences which are directly concerned 
with things of some sort. For example, to the plain man the 
world of material things consists of things that can be seen and 
touched. Many of these seem to fill space continuously. They 
may be divided, but the parts into which they may be divided 
are conceived as fragments of the things, and as of the same gen- 
eral nature as the wholes of which they are parts. Yet the 
chemist and the physicist tell us that these same extended things 
are not really continuous, as they seem to us to be, but consist 
of swarms of imperceptible atoms, in rapid motion, at consider- 
able distances from one another in space, and grouped in various 
ways. 

What has now become of the world of realities to which the 
plain man pinned his faith? It has come to be looked upon 
as a world of appearances, of phenomena, of manifestations, 
under which the real things, themselves imperceptible, make 
their presence evident to our senses. Is this new, real world 
the world of things in which the plain man finds himself, and 
in which he has felt so much at home? 

A closer scrutiny reveals that the world of atoms and mole- 
cules into which the man of science resolves the system of mate- 
rial things is not, after all, so very different in kind from the 
world to which the plain man is accustomed. He can under- 
stand without difficulty the language in which it is described to 
him, and he can readily see how a man may be led to assume 
its existence. 

The atom is not, it is true, directly perceivable by sense, but 
it is conceived as though it and its motions were thus perceivable. 
The plain man has long known that things consist of parts 
which remain, under some circumstances, invisible. When 
he approaches an object from a distance, he sees parts which he 
could not see before; and what appears to the naked eye a 
mere speck without perceptible parts is found under the micro- 
scope to be an insect with its full complement of members. More- 



Science 23 

over, he has often observed that objects which appear continuous 
when seen from a distance are evidently far from continuous 
when seen close at hand. As we walk toward a tree we can see 
the indefinite mass of color break up into discontinuous patches ; 
a fabric, which presents the appearance of an unbroken surface 
when viewed in certain ways may be seen to be riddled with 
holes when held between the eye and the light. There is no 
man who has not some acquaintance with the distinction be- 
tween appearance and reality, and who does not make use of 
the distinction in common life. 

Nor can it seem a surprising fact that different combinations 
of atoms should exhibit different properties. Have we not 
always known that things in combination are apt to have differ- 
ent properties from the same things taken separately? He who 
does not know so much as this is not fit even to be a cook. 

No, the imperceptible world of atoms and molecules is not 
by any means totally different from the world of things in which 
the plain man hves. These little objects and groups of objects 
are discussed very much as we discuss the larger objects and 
groups of objects to which we are accustomed. We are still 
concerned with things which exist in space and move about in. 
space; and even if these things are small and are not very 
familiarly known, no intellectual revolution is demanded to 
enable a man to understand the words of the scientist who is 
talking about them, and to understand as well the sort of reason- 
ings upon which the doctrine is based. 

9. Mathematics. — Let us now turn to take a glance at the 
mathematical sciences. Of course, these have to do with things 
sooner or later, for our mathematical reasonings would be 
absolutely useless to us if they could not be applied to the world 
of things; but in mathematical reasonings we abstract from 
things for the time being, confident that we can come back to 
them when we want to do so, and can make use of the results 
obtained in our operations- 



24 -^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

Now, every civilized man who is not mentally deficient can 
perform the fundamental operations of arithmetic. He can 
add and subtract, multiply and divide. In other words, he 
can use numbers. The man who has become an accomplished 
mathematician can use numbers much better; but if we are 
capable of following intelligently the intricate series of opera- 
tions that he carries out on the paper before us, and can see the 
significance of the system of signs which he uses as an aid, we 
shall realize that he is only doing in more complicated ways 
what we have been accustomed to do almost from our child- 
hood. 

If we are interested, not so much in performing the operations, 
as in inquiring into what really takes place in a mind when 
several units are grasped together and made into a new unit, — 
for example, when twelve units are thought as one dozen, — 
the mathematician has a right to say : I leave all that to the 
psychologist or to the metaphysician; every one knows in a 
general way what is meant by a unit, and knows that units can 
be added and subtracted, grouped and separated; I only under- 
take to show how one may avoid error in doing these things. 

It is with geometry as it is with arithmetic. No man is wholly 
ignorant of points, lines, surfaces, and solids. We are all 
aware that a short line is not a point, a narrow surface is not a 
line, and a thin solid is not a mere surface. A door so thin as 
to have only one side would be repudiated by every man of sense 
as a monstrosity. When the geometrician defines for us the 
point, the line, the surface, and the solid, and when he sets before 
us an array of axioms, or self-evident truths, we follow him with 
confidence because he seems to be telling us things that we can 
directly see to be reasonable ; indeed, to be telling us things that 
we have always known. 

The truth is that the geometrician does not introduce us to 
a new world at all. He merely gives us a fuller and a more 
exact account than was before within our reach of the space 



Science 25 

relations which obtain in the world of external objects, a world 
we already know pretty well. 

Suppose that we say to him: You have spent many years in 
dividing up space and in scrutinizing the relations that are to 
be discovered in that realm; now tell us, what is space? Is it 
real ? Is it a thing, or a quality of a thing, or merely a relation 
between things? And how can any man think space, when the 
ideas through which he must think it are supposed to be them- 
selves non-extended ? The space itself is not supposed to be 
in the mind ; how can a collection of non-extended ideas give 
any inkling of what is meant by extension? 

Would any teacher of mathematics dream of discussing these 
questions with his class before proceeding to the proof of his 
propositions? It is generally admitted that, if such questions 
are to be answered at all, it is not with the aid of geometrical 
reasonings that they will be answered. 

10. The Science of Psychology. — Now let us come back to 
a science which has to do directly with things. We have seen 
that the plain man has some knowledge of minds as well as of 
material things. Everyone admits that the psychologist knows 
minds better. May we say that his knowledge of minds differs 
from that of the plain man about as the knowledge of plants 
possessed by the botanist differs from that of all intelligent 
persons who have cared to notice them? Or is it a knowledge 
of a quite different kind ? 

Those who are familiar with the development of the sciences 
within recent years have had occasion to remark the fact that 
psychology has been coming more and more to take its place as 
an independent science. Formerly it was regarded as part of 
the duty of the philosopher to treat of the mind and its knowl- 
edge; but the psychologist who pretends to be no more than a 
psychologist is a product of recent times. This tendency 
toward specialization is a natural thing, and is quite in line with 
what has taken place in other fields of investigation. 



26 An Introduction to Philosophy 

When any science becomes an independent discipline, it is 
recognized that it is a more or less limited field in which work 
of a certain kind is done in a certain way. Other fields and 
other kinds of work are to some extent ignored. But it is quite 
to be expected that there should be some dispute, especially 
at first, as to what does or does not properly fall within the limits 
of a given science. Where these limits shall be placed is, after 
all, a matter of convenience; and sometimes it is not well to 
be too strict in marking off one field from another. It is well to 
watch the actual development of a science, and to note the direc- 
tion instinctively taken by investigators in that particular field. 

If we compare the psychology of a generation or so ago with 
that of the present day, we cannot but be struck with the fact 
that there is an increasing tendency to treat psychology as a 
natural science. By this is not meant, of course, that there is 
no difference between psychology and the sciences that concern 
themselves with the world of material things — psychology has 
to do primarily with minds and not with bodies. But it is 
meant that, as the other sciences improve upon the knowledge 
of the plain man without wholly recasting it, as they accept 
the world in which he finds himself and merely attempt to 
give us a better account of it, so the psychologist may accept 
the world of matter and of minds recognized by common thought, 
and may devote himself to the study of minds, without attempt- 
ing to solve a class of problems discussed by the metaphysician. 
For example, he may refuse to discuss the question whether the 
mind can really know that there is an external world with which 
it stands in relation, and from which it receives messages along 
the avenues of the senses. He may claim that it is no more his 
business to treat of this than it is the business of the mathe- 
matician to treat of the ultimate nature of space. 

Thus the psychologist assumes without question the existence 
of an external real world, a world of matter and motion. He 
finds in this world certain organized bodies that present phe- 



Science 27 

nomena which he regards as indicative of the presence of minds. 
He accepts it as a fact that each mind knows its own states 
directly, and knows everything else by inference from those 
states, receiving messages from the outer world along one set 
of nerves and reacting along another set. He conceives of 
minds as wholly dependent upon messages thus conveyed to 
them from without. He tells us how a mind, by the aid of such 
messages, gradually builds up for itself the notion of the exter- 
nal world and of the other minds which are connected with 
bodies to be found in that world. 

We may fairly say that all this is merely a development of 
and an improvement upon the plain man's knowledge of minds 
and of bodies. There is no normal man who does not know 
that his mind is more intimately related to his body than it is 
to other bodies. We all distinguish between our ideas of things 
and the external things they represent, and we believe that our 
knowledge of things comes to us through the avenues of the 
senses. Must we not open our eyes to see, and unstop our ears 
to hear? We all know that we do not perceive other minds 
directly, but must infer their contents from what takes place 
in the bodies to which they are referred — from words and ac- 
tions. Moreover, we know that a knowledge of the outer 
world and of other minds is built up gradually, and we never 
think of an infant as knowing what a man knows, much as we 
are inclined to overrate the minds of infants. 

The fact that the plain man and the psychologist do not 
greatly differ in their point of view must impress every one who 
is charged with the task of introducing students to the study of 
psychology and philosophy. It is rather an easy thing to make 
them follow the reasonings of the psychologist, so long as he 
avoids metaphysical reflections. The assumptions which he 
makes seem to them not unreasonable; and, as for his methods 
of investigation, there is no one of them which they have not 
already employed themselves in a more or less blundering way. 



28 An Introduction to Philosophy 

They have had recourse to introspection, i.e. they have noticed 
the phenomena of their own minds; they have made use of the 
objective method, i.e. they have observed the signs of mind ex- 
hibited by other persons and by the brutes; they have some- 
times experimented — this is done by the schoolgirl who tries 
to find out how best to tease her roommate, and by the boy 
who covers and uncovers his ears in church to make the preacher 
sing a tune. 

It may not be easy to make men good psychologists, but it 
is certainly not difficult to make them understand what the 
psychologist is doing and to make them realize the value of his 
work. He, like the workers in the other natural sciences, takes 
for granted the world of the plain man, the world of material 
things in space and time and of minds related to those material 
things. But when it is a question of introducing the student 
to the reflections of the philosophers the case is very different. 
We seem to be enticing him into a new and a strange world, and 
he is apt to be filled with suspicion and distrust. The most 
familiar things take on an unfamiliar aspect, and questions are 
raised which it strikes the unreflective man as highly absurd 
even to propose. Of this world of reflective thought I shall 
say just a word in what follows. 

II. Reflective Thought. — If we ask our neighbor to meet us 
somewhere at a given hour, he has no difficulty in understanding 
what we have requested him to do. If he wishes to do so, he can 
be on the spot at the proper moment. He may never have asked 
himself in his whole life what he means by space and by time. 
He may be quite ignorant that thoughtful men have disputed 
concerning the nature of these for centuries past. 

And a man may go through the world avoiding disaster year 
after year by distinguishing with some success between what is 
real and what is not real, and yet he may be quite unable to 
tell us what, in general, it means for a thing to be real. Some 
things are real and some are not; as a rule he seems to be able 



Reflective Thought 29 

to discover the difference; of his method of procedure he has 
never tried to give an account to himself. 

That he has a mind he cannot doubt, and he has some idea 
of the difference between it and certain other minds; but even 
the most ardent champion of the plain man must admit that 
he has the most hazy of notions touching the nature of his mind. 
He seems to be more doubtful concerning the nature of the mind 
and its knowledge than he is concerning the nature of external 
things. Certainly he appears to be more willing to admit his 
ignorance in this realm. 

And yet the man can hold his own in the world of real things. 
He can distinguish between this thing and that, this place and 
that, this time and that. He can think out a plan and carry 
it into execution; he can guess at the contents of other minds 
and allow this knowledge to find its place in his plan. 

All of which proves that our knowledge is not necessarily 
useless because it is rather dim and vague. It is one thing to 
use a mental state; it is another to have a clear comprehension 
of just what it is and of what elements it may be made up. 
The plain man does much of his thinking as we all tie our shoes 
and button our buttons. It would be difficult for us to describe 
these operations, but we may perform them very easily never- 
theless. When we say that we know how to tie our shoes, we 
only mean that we can tie them. 

Now, enough has been said in the preceding sections to make 
clear that the vagueness which characterizes many notions which 
constantly recur in common thought is not wholly dispelled by 
the study of the several sciences. The man of science, like the 
plain man, may be able to use very well for certain purposes 
concepts which he is not able to analyze satisfactorily. For 
example, he speaks of 'space and time, cause and effect, substance 
and qualities, matter and mind, reality and unreahty. He 
certainly is in a position to add to our knowledge of the things 
covered by these terms. But we should never overlook the fact 



30 An Introduction to Philosophy 

that the new knowledge which he gives us is a knowledge of 
the same kind as that which we had before. He measures for 
us spaces and times; he does not tell us what space and time 
are. He points out the causes of a multitude of occurrences; 
he does not tell us what we mean whenever we use the word 
" cause." He informs us what we should accept as real and 
what we should repudiate as unreal; he does not try to show 
us what it is to be real and what it is to be unreal. 

In other words, the man of science extends our knowledge 
and makes it more accurate; he does not analyze certain fun- 
damental conceptions, which we all use, but of which we can 
usually give a very poor account. 

On the other hand, it is the task of rejiective thought, not, 
in the first instance, to extend the limits of our knowledge of 
the world of matter and of minds, but rather to make us more 
clearly conscious of what that knowledge really is. Philosophical 
reflection takes up and tries to analyze complex thoughts that 
men use daily without caring to analyze them, indeed, without 
even realizing that they may be subjected to analysis. 

It is to be expected that it should impress many of those who 
are introduced to it for the first time as rather a fantastic crea- 
tion of problems that do not present themselves naturally to 
the healthy mind. There is no thoughtful man who does not 
reflect sometimes and about some things; but there are few 
who feel impelled to go over the whole edifice of their knowledge 
and examine it with a critical eye from its turrets to its founda- 
tions. In a sense, we may say that philosophical thought is 
not natural, for he who is examining the assumptions upon 
which all our ordinary thought about the world rests is no longer 
in the world of the plain man. He is treating things as men 
do not commonly treat them, and it is perhaps natural that it 
should appear to some that, in the solvent which he uses, the 
real world in which we all rejoice should seem to dissolve and 
disappear. 



Reflective Thought 31 

I have said that it is not the task of reflective thought, in the 
f,rst instance, to extend the limits of our knowledge of the world 
of matter and of minds. This is true. But this does not mean 
that, as a result of a careful reflective analysis, some errors which 
may creep into the thought both of the plain man and of the 
scientist may not be exploded; nor does it mean that some new 
extensions of our knowledge may not be suggested. 

In the chapters to follow I shall take up and examine some 
of the problems of reflective thought. And I shall consider 
first those problems that present themselves to those who try 
to subject to a careful scrutiny our knowledge of the external 
world. It is well to begin with this, for, even in our common 
experience, it seems to be revealed that the knowledge of mate- 
rial things is a something less vague and indefinite than the 
knowledge of minds. 



II. PROBLEMS TOUCHING THE EXTERNAL 
WORLD 

CHAPTER III 

IS THERE AN EXTERNAL WORLD? 

12. How the Plain Man thinks he knows the World. — As 

schoolboys we enjoyed Cicero's joke at the expense of the 
" minute philosophers." They denied the immortality of the 
soul ; he afhrmed it ; and he congratulated himself upon the fact 
that, if they were right, they would not survive to discover it 
and to triumph over him. 

At the close of the seventeenth century the philosopher John 
Locke was guilty of a joke of somewhat the same kind. " I 
think," said he, " nobody can, in earnest, be so skeptical as to 
be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees and 
feels. At least, hje that can doubt so far (whatever he may 
have with his own thoughts) will never have any controversy 
with me; since he can never be sure I say anything contrary to 
his own opinion." 

Now, in this chapter and in certain chapters to follow, I am 
going to take up and turn over, so that we may get a good look 
at them, some of the problems that have presented themselves 
to those who have reflected upon the world and the mind as 
they seem given in our experience. I shall begin by asking 
whether it is not possible to doubt that there is an external 
world at all. 

The question cannot best be answered by a jest. It may, of 
course, be absurd to maintain that there is no external world; 

32 



Is there an External World? 33 

but surely he, too, is in an absurd position who maintains dog- 
matically that there is one, and is yet quite unable to find any 
flaw in the reasonings of the man who seems to be able to show 
that this belief has no solid foundation. And we must not for- 
get that the men who have thought it worth while to raise just 
such questions as this, during the last twenty centuries, have 
been among the most brilliant intellects of the race. We must 
not assume too hastily that they have occupied themselves with 
mere trivialities. 

Since, therefore, so many thoughtful men have found it worth 
while to ask themselves seriously whether there is an external 
world, or, at least, how we can know that there is an external 
world, it is not unreasonable to expect that, by looking for it, 
we may find in our common experience or in science some 
difficulty sufficient to suggest the doubt which at first strikes 
the average man as preposterous. In what can such a doubt 
take its rise? Let us see. 

I think it is scarcely too much to say that the plain man 
beheves that he does not directly perceive an external world, and 
that he, at the same time, believes that he does directly perceive 
one. It is quite possible to believe contradictory things, when 
one's thought of them is somewhat vague, and when one does 
not consciously bring them together. 

As to the first-mentioned belief. Does not the plain man 
distinguish between his ideas of things and the things themselves? 
Does he not believe that his ideas come to him through the 
avenues of the senses? Is he not aware of the fact that, when a 
sense is disordered, the thing as he perceives it is not like the 
thing " as it is " ? A blind man does not see things when they 
are there; a color-blind man sees them as others do not see 
them; a man suffering under certain abnormal conditions of 
the nervous system sees things when they are not there at all, 
i.e. he has hallucinations. The thing itself, as it seems, is not~ 
in the man's mind; it is the idea that is in the man's mind, and 



34 An Introduction to Philosophy 

that represents the thing. Sometimes it appears to give a true 
account of it; sometimes it seems to give a garbled account; 
sometimes it is a false representative throughout — there is no 
reality behind it. It is, then, the idea that is immediately 
known, and not the thing; the thing is merely inferred to exist. 

I do not mean to say that the plain man is conscious of draw- 
ing this conclusion. I only maintain that it seems a natural 
conclusion to draw from the facts which he recognizes, and that 
sometimes he seems to draw the conclusion half-consciously. 

On the other hand, we must all admit that when the plain 
man is not thinking about the distinction between ideas and 
things, but is looking at some material object before him, is 
touching it with his fingers and turning it about to get a good 
look at it, it never occurs to him that he is not directly conscious 
of the thing itself. 

He seems to himself to perceive the thing immediately; to 
perceive it as it is and where it is; to perceive it as a really 
extended thing, out there in space before his body. He does 
not think of himself as occupied with mere images, representa- 
tions of the object. He may be willing to admit that his mind 
is in his head, but he cannot think that what he sees is in his 
head. Is not the object there? does he not see and ]eel it? 
Why doubt such evidence as this? He who tells him that the 
external world does not exist seems to be denying what is im- 
mediately given in his experience. 

The man who looks at things in this way assumes, of course, 
that the external object is known directly, and is not a some- 
thing merely inferred to exist from the presence of a representa- 
tive image. May one embrace this belief and abandon the other 
one? If we elect to do this, we appear to be in difficulties at 
once. All the considerations which made us distinguish so 
carefully between our ideas of things and the things themselves 
crowd in upon us. Can it be that we know things independ- 
ently of the avenues of the senses ? Would a man with different 



Is there an Exter7ial World? 35 

senses know things just as we do? How can any man suffer 
from an hallucination, if things are not inferred from images, 
but are known independently? 

The difficulties encountered appear sufficiently serious even if 
we keep to that knowledge of things which seems to be given in 
common experience. But even the plain man has heard of 
atoms and molecules; and if he accepts the extension of knowl- 
edge offered him by the man of science, he must admit that, 
whatever this apparently immediately perceived external thing 
may be, it cannot be the external thing that science assures him 
is out there in space beyond his body, and which must be a very 
different sort of thing from the thing he seems to perceive. The 
thing he perceives must, then, be appearance; and where can 
that appearance be if not in his own mind? 

The man who has made no study of philosophy at all does 
not usually think these things out; but surely there are interro- 
gation marks written up all over his experience, and he misses 
them only because he does not see clearly. By judiciously ask- 
ing questions one may often lead him either to affirm or to deny 
that he has an immediate knowledge of the external world, 
pretty much as one pleases. If he affirms it, his position does 
not seem to be a wholly satisfactory one, as we have seen; 
and if he denies it, he makes the existence of the external world 
wholly a matter of inference from the presence of ideas in the 
mind, and he must stand ready to justify this inference. 

To many men it has seemed that the inference is not an easy 
one to justify. One may say: We could have no ideas of things, 
no sensations, if real things did not exist and make an impres- 
sion upon our senses. But to this it may be answered: How 
is that statement to be proved ? Is it to be proved by observing 
that, when things are present and affect the senses, there come 
into being ideas which represent the things? Evidently such a 
proof at this is out of the question, for, if it is true that we know 
external things only by inference and never immediately, then 



36 An Introduction to Philosophy 

we can never prove by observation that ideas and things are 
thus connected. And if it is not to be proved by observation, 
how shall it be proved? Shall we just assume it dogmatically 
and pass on to something else? Surely there is enough in the 
experience of the plain man to justify him in raising the question 
whether he can certainly know that there is an external world. 

13. The Psychologist and Jhe External World. — We have 
seen just above that the doubt regarding the existence of the 
world seems to have its root in the familiar distinction be- 
tween ideas and things, appearances and the realities which 
they are supposed to represent. The psychologist has much to 
say about ideas; and if sharpening and making clear this 
distinction has anything to do with stirring up doubts, it is 
natural to suppose that they should become more insistent when 
one has exchanged the ignorance of everyday life for the knowl- 
edge of the psychologist. 

Now, when the psychologist asks how a given mind comes to 
have a knowledge of any external thing, he finds his answer in 
the messages which have been brought to the mind by means 
of the bodily senses. He describes the sense-organs and the 
nervous connections between these and the brain, and tells us 
that when certain nervous impulses have traveled, let us say, 
from the eye or the ear to the brain, one has sensations of sight 
or sound. 

He describes for us in detail how, out of such sensations and 
the memories of such sensations, we frame mental images of 
external things. Between the mental image and the thing that 
it represents he distinguishes sharply, and he informs us that 
the mind knows no more about the external thing than is con- 
tained in such images. That a thing is present can be known 
only by the fact that a message from the thing is sent along the 
nerves, and what the thing is must be determined from the 
character of the message. Given the image in the absence of 
the thing, — that is to say, an hallucination, — the mind will 



Is there an External World? 2,7 

naturally suppose that the thing is present. This false sup- 
position cannot be corrected by a direct inspection of the thing, 
for such a direct inspection of things is out of the question. 
The only way in which the mind concerned can discover that 
the thing is absent is by referring to its other experiences. 
This image is compared with other images and is discovered to 
be in some way abnormal. We decide that it is a false repre- 
sentative and has no corresponding reality behind it. 

This doctrine taken as it stands seems to cut the mind off 
from the external world very completely; and the most curious 
thing about it is that it seems to be built up on the assumption 
that it is not really true. How can one know certainly that 
there is a world of material things, including human bodies with 
their sense-organs and nerves, if no mind has ever been able to 
inspect directly anything of the sort? How can we tell that a 
sensation arises when a nervous impulse has been carried along 
a sensory nerve and has reached the brain, if every mind is shut 
up to the charmed circle of its own ideas? The anatomist and 
the physiologist give us very detailed accounts of the sense- 
organs and of the brain; the physiologist even undertakes to 
measure the speed with which the impulse passes along a nerve ; 
the psychologist accepts and uses the results of their labors. 
But can all this be done in the absence of any first-hand knowl- 
edge of the things of which one is talking? Remember that, if 
the psychologist is right, any external object, eye, ear, nerve, or 
brain, which we can perceive directly, is a mental complex, a 
something in the mind and not external at all. How shall we 
prove that there are objects, ears, eyes, nerves, and brains, — in 
short, all the requisite mechanism for the calling into existence 
of sensations, — in an outer world which is not immediately per- 
ceived but is only inferred to exist ? 

I do not wish to be regarded as impugning the right of the 
psychologist to make the assumptions which he does, and to 
work as he does. He has a right to assume, with the plain 



38 An Introduction to Philosophy 

man, that there is an external world and that we know it. But 
a very little reflection must make it manifest that he seems, at 
least, to be guilty of an inconsistency, and that he who wishes to 
think clearly should strive to see just where the trouble Kes. 

So much, at least, is evident: the man who is inclined to 
doubt whether there is, after all, any real external world, ap- 
pears to find in the psychologist's distinction between ideas and 
things something like an excuse for his doubt. To get to the 
bottom of the matter and to dissipate his doubt one has to go 
rather deeply into metaphysics. I merely wish to show just 
here that the doubt is not a gratuitous one, but is really suggested 
to the thoughtful mind by a reflection upon our experience of 
things. And, as we are all apt to think that the man of science 
is less given to busying himself with useless subtleties than is the 
philosopher, I shall, before closing this chapter, present some 
paragraphs upon the subject from the pen of a professor of 
mathematics and mechanics. 

14. The "Telephone Exchange." — "We are accustomed 
to talk," writes Professor Karl Pearson,^ " of the ' external 
world,' of the ' reality ' outside us. We speak of individual 
objects having an existence independent of our own. The 
store of past sense-impressions, our thoughts and mem- 
ories, although most probably they have beside their psy- 
chical element a close correspondence with some physical 
change or impress in the brain, are yet spoken of as inside our- 
selves. On the other hand, although if a sensory nerve be 
divided anywhere short of the brain, we lose the corresponding 
class of sense impression, we yet speak of many sense-impres- 
sions, such as form and texture, as existing outside ourselves. 
How close then can we actually get to this supposed world out- 
side ourselves? Just as near but no nearer than the brain 
terminals of the sensory nerves. We are like the clerk in the 
central telephone exchange who cannot get nearer to his cus- 
' "The Grammar of Science," 2d Ed., London, 1900, pp. 60-63. 



Is there an External World? 39 

tomers than his end of the telephone wires. We are indeed 
worse off than the clerk, for to carry out the analogy properly 
we must suppose him never to have been outside the telephone 
exchange, never to have seen a customer or any one like a customer 
— in short, never, except through the telephone wire, to have come 
in contact with the outside universe. Of that ' real ' universe 
outside himself he would be able to form no direct impression; 
the real universe for him would be the aggregate of his con- 
structs from the messages which were caused by the telephone 
wires in his ofhce. About those messages and the ideas raised 
in his mind by them he might reason and draw his inferences; 
and his conclusions would be correct — for what? For the 
world of telephonic messages, for the type of messages that go 
through the telephone. Something definite and valuable he 
might know with regard to the spheres of action and of thought 
of his telephonic subscribers, but outside those spheres he could 
have no experience. Pent up in his office he could never have 
seen or touched even a telephonic subscriber in himself. Very 
much in the position of such a telephone clerk is the conscious 
ego of each one of us seated at the brain terminals of the sensory 
nerves. Not a step nearer than those terminals can the ego get 
to the ' outer world,' and what in and for themselves are the 
subscribers to its nerve exchange it has no means of ascertain- 
ing. Messages in the form of sense-impressions come flowing 
in from that ' outside world,' and these we analyze, classify, 
store up, and reason about. But of the nature of ' things-in- 
themselves,' of what may exist at the other end of our system 
of telephone wires, we know nothing at all. 

" But the reader, perhaps, remarks, ' I not only see an object, 
but I can touch it. I can trace the nerve from the tip of my 
finger to the brain. I am not like the telephone clerk, I can 
follow my network of wires to their terminals and find what is 
at the other end of them.' Can you, reader? Think for a 
moment whether your ego has for one moment got away from 



40 An Introduction to Philosophy 

his brain exchange. The sense-impression that you call touch 
was just as much as sight felt only at the brain end of a sensory 
nerve. What has told you also of the nerve from the tip of 
your finger to your brain? Why, sense-impressions also, mes- 
sages conveyed along optic or tactile sensory nerves. In truth, 
all you have been doing is to employ one subscriber to your 
telephone exchange to tell you about the wire that goes to a 
second, but you are just as far as ever from tracing out for 
yourself the telephone wires to the individual subscriber and 
ascertaining what his nature is in and for himself. The im- 
mediate sense-impression is just as far removed from what you 
term the ' outside world ' as the store of impresses. If our 
telephone clerk had recorded by aid of a phonograph certain 
of the messages from the outside world on past occasions, then 
if any telephonic message on its receipt set several phonographs 
repeating past messages, we have an image analogous to what 
goes on in the brain. Both telephone and phonograph are 
equally removed from what the clerk might call the ' real out- 
side world,' but they enable him through their sounds to con- 
struct a universe; he projects those sounds, which are really 
inside his ofhce, outside his ofhce, and speaks of them as the 
external universe. This outside world is constructed by him 
from the contents of the inside sounds, which differ as widely 
from things-in-themselves as language, the symbol, must always 
differ from the thing it symbolizes. For our telephone clerk 
sounds would be the real world, and yet we can see how con- 
ditioned and limited it would be by the range of his particular 
telephone subscribers and by the contents of their messages. 

"So it is with our brain; the sounds from telephone and 
phonograph correspond to immediate and stored sense-impres- 
sions. These sense-impressions we project as it were outwards 
and term the real world outside ourselves. But the things-in- 
themselves which the sense-impressions symbolize, the ' reality,' 
as the metaphysicians wish to call it, at the other end of the 



Is there mi External World? 41 

nerve, remains unknown and is unknowable. Reality of the 
external world lies for science and for us in combinations of 
form and color and touch — sense-impressions as widely diver- 
gent from the thing ' at the other end of the nerve ' as the sound 
of the telephone from the subscriber at the other end of the wire. 
We are cribbed and confined in this world of sense-impressions 
Hke the exchange clerk in his world of sounds, and not a step 
beyond can we get. As his world is conditioned and limited 
by his particular network of wires, so ours is conditioned by 
our nervous system, by our organs of sense. Their peculiarities 
determine what is the nature of the outside world which we 
construct. It is the similarity in the organs of sense and in 
the perceptive faculty of all normal human beings which 
makes the outside world the same, or practically the same, for 
them all. To return to the old analogy, it is as if two telephone 
exchanges had very nearly identical groups of subscribers. In 
this case a wire between the two exchanges would soon convince 
the imprisoned clerks that they had something in common and 
peculiar to themselves. That conviction corresponds in our 
comparison to the recognition of other consciousness." 

I suggest that this extract be read over carefully, not once 
but several times, and that the reader try to make quite clear 
to himself the position of the clerk in the telephone exchange, 
i.e. the position of the mind in the body, as depicted by Pro- 
fessor Pearson, before recourse is had to the criticisms of any 
one else. One cannot find anywhere better material for critical 
philosophical reflection. 

As has been seen, our author accepts without question the 
psychological doctrine that the mind is shut up within the circle 
of the messages that are conducted to it along the sensory 
nerves, and that it cannot directly perceive anything truly 
external. He carries his doctrine out to the bitter end in the 
conclusion that, since we have never had experience of anything 
beyond sense-impressions, and have no ground for an inference 



42 An Introduction to Philosophy 

to anything beyond, we must recognize that the only external 
world of which we know anything is an external world built 
up out of sense-impressions. It is, thus, in the mind, and is 
not external at all; it is only " projected outwards," thought o] 
as though it were beyond us. Shall we leave the inconsistent 
position of the plain man and of the psychologist and take our 
refuge in this world of projected mental constructs? 

Before the reader makes up his mind to do this, I beg him to 
consider the following : — 

(i) If the only external world of which we have a right to 
speak at all is a construct in the mind or ego^ we may certainly 
afi&rm that the world is in the ego^ but does it sound sensible to 
say that the ego is somewhere in the world ? 

(2) If all external things are really inside the mind, and are 
only " projected " outwards, of course our own bodies, sense- 
organs, nerves, and brains, are really inside and are merely 
projected outwards. Now, do the sense-impressions of which 
everything is to be constructed " come flowing in " along these 
nerves that are really inside? 

(3) Can we say, when a nerve lies entirely within the mind or 
ego, that this same mind or ego is nearer to one end of the nerve 
than it is to the other? How shall we picture to ourselves " the 
conscious ego of each one of us seated at the brain terminals of 
the sensory nerves " ? How can the ego place the whole of 
itself at the end of a nerve which it has constructed within 
itself? And why is it more difficult for it to get to one end of 
a nerve like this than it is to get to the other? 

(4) Why should the thing " at the other end of the nerve " 
remain unknown and unknowable? Since the nerve is entirely 
in the mind, is purely a mental construct, can anything what- 
ever be at the end of it without being in the mind? And if 
the thing in question is not in the mind, how are we going to 
prove that it is any nearer to one end of a nerve which is inside 
the mind than it is to the other? If it may really be said to be 



Is there an External World? 43 

at the end of the nerve, why may we not know it quite as well 
as we do the end of the nerve, or any other mental construct? 

It must be clear to the careful reader of Professor Pearson's 
paragraphs, that he does not confine himself strictly to the 
world of mere " projections," to an outer world which is really 
inner. If he did this, the distinction between inner and outer 
would disappear. Let us consider for a moment the imprisoned 
clerk. He is in a telephone exchange, about him are wires and 
subscribers. He gets only sounds and must build up his whole 
universe of things out of sounds. Now we are supposing him 
to be in a telephone exchange, to be receiving messages, to be 
building up a world out of these messages. Do we for a moment 
think of him as building up, out of the messages which came 
along the wires, those identical wires which carried the messages 
and the subscribers which sent them? Never ! we distinguish 
between the exchange, with its wires and subscribers, and the 
messages received and worked up into a world. In picturing 
to ourselves the telephone exchange, we are doing what the plain 
man and the psychologist do when they distinguish between .^ 
mind and body, — they never suppose that the messages which ^ 
come through the senses are identical with the senses through. ) 
which they come. 

But suppose we maintain that there is no such thing as a 
telephone exchange, with its wires and subscribers, which is not 
to be found within some clerk. Suppose the real external world 
is something inner and only " projected " without, mistakenly 
supposed by the unthinking to be without. Suppose it is 
nonsense to speak of a wire which is not in the mind of a clerk. 
May we under such circumstances describe any clerk as in a 
telephone exchange ? as receiving messages ? as no nearer to his 
subscribers than his end of the wire? May we say that sense- 
impressions come -flowing in to him? The whole figure of the / 
telephone exchange becomes an absurdity when we have once ( . 
placed the exchange within the clerk. Nor can we think of / 



44 An Introduction to Philosophy 

two clerks as connected by a wire, when it is afi&rmed that every 
wire must " really " be in some clerk. 

The truth is, that, in the extracts which I have given above 
and in many other passages in the same volume, the real external 
world, the world which does not exist in the mind but without 
it, is much discredited, and is yet not actually discarded. The 
ego is placed at the brain terminals of the sensory nerves, and it 
receives messages which fow in; i.e. the clerk is actually placed 
in an exchange. That the existence of the exchange is after- 
ward denied in so many words does not mean that it has not 
played and does not continue to play an important part in the 
thought of the author. 

It is interesting to see how a man of science, whose reflections 
compel him to deny the existence of the external world that we 
all seem to perceive and that we somehow recognize as distinct 
from anything in our minds, is nevertheless compelled to admit 
the existence. o\ this world at every turn. 

But if we do admit it, what shall we make of it? Shall we 
deny the truth of what the psychologist has to tell us about a 
knowledge of things only through the sensations to which they 
give rise? We cannot, surely, do that. Shall we affirm that 
we know the external world directly, and at the same time that 
we do not know it directly, but only indirectly, and through the 
images which arise in our minds? That seems inconsistent. 
Certainly there is material for reflection here. 

Nevertheless the more we reflect on that material, the more 
evident does it become that the plain man cannot be wrong in 
believing in the external world which seems revealed in his 
experiences. We find that all attempts to discredit it rest 
upon the implicit assumption of its existence, and fall to the 
ground when that existence is honestly denied. So our problem 
changes its form. We no lon ger ask : Is the re an exter nal 
,wor]xi.^--^>tt#--¥ath^r2_TF/M it is the extemaTwoHd^and how does 
it differ from the world of mere ideas? 



CHAPTER IV 
SENSATIONS AND "THINGS" 

15. Sense and Imagination. — Every one distinguishes be- 
tween things perceived and things only imagined. With open 
eyes I see the desk before me; with eyes closed, I can imagine 
it. I lay my hand on it and feel it; I can, without laying my 
hand on it, imagine that I feel it. I raise my eyes, and see the 
pictures on the wall opposite me; I can sit here and call before 
my mind the image of the door by which the house is entered. 

What is the difference between sense and imagination? It 
must be a difference of which we are all somehow conscious, 
for we unhesitatingly distinguish between the things we perceive 
and the things we merely imagine. 

It is well to remember at the outset that the two classes of 
experiences are not wholly different. The blue color that I 
imagine seems blue. It does not lose this quality because it 
is only imaginary. The horse that I imagine seems to have 
four legs, like a horse perceived. As I call it before my mind, 
it seems as large as the real horse. Neither the color, nor the 
size, nor the distribution of parts, nor any other attribute of 
the sort appears to be different in the imaginary object from 
what it is in the object as given in sensation. 

The two experiences are, nevertheless, not the same; and 
every one knows that they are not the same. One difference that 
roughly marks out the two classes of experiences from one 
another is that, as a rule, our sense-experiences are more vivid 
than are the images that exist in the imagination. 

I say, as a rule, for we cannot always remark this difference. 
Sensations may be very clear and unmistakable, but they may 

45 



46 An Introduction to Philosophy 

also be very faint and indefinite. When a man lays his hand 
firmly on my shoulder, I may be in little doubt whether I feel 
a sensation or do not ; but when he touches my back very lightly, 
I may easily be in doubt, and may ask myself in perplexity 
whether I have really been touched or whether I have merely 
imagined it. As a vessel recedes and becomes a mere speck 
upon the horizon, I may well wonder, before I feel sure that it 
is really quite out of sight, whether I still see the dim little point, 
or whether I merely imagine that I see it. 

On the other hand, things merely imagined may sometimes 
be very vivid and insistent. To some persons, what exists in 
the imagination is dim and indefinite in the extreme. Others 
imagine things vividly, and can describe what is present only 
to the imagination almost as though it were something seen. 
Finally, we know that an image may become so vivid and in- 
sistent as to be mistaken for an external thing. That is to say, 
there are such things as hallucinations. 

The criterion of vividness will not, therefore, always serve 
to distinguish between what is given in the sense and what is 
only imagined. And, indeed, it becomes evident, upon reflec- 
tion, that we do not actually make it our ultimate test. We may 
be quite willing to admit that faint sensations may come to be 
confused with what is imagined, with " ideas," but we always 
regard such a confusion as somebody's error. We are not ready 
to admit that things perceived faintly are things imagined, 
or that vivid " ideas " are things perceived by sense. 

Let us come back to the illustrations with which we started. 
How do I know that I perceive the desk before me ; and how do 
I know that, sitting here, I imagine, and do not see, the front 
door of the house? 

My criterion is this: when I have the experience I call " see- 
ing my desk," the bit of experience which presents itself as my 
desk is in a certain setting. That is to say, the desk seen must 
be in a certain relation to my body, and this body, as I know it, 



Sensations and " Things'''^ 47 

also consists of experiences. Thus, if I am to know that I see 
the desk, I must reahze that my eyes are open, that the object 
is in front of me and not behind me, etc. 

The desk as seen varies with the relation to the body in cer- 
tain ways that we regard as natural and explicable. When I 
am near it, the visual experience is not just what it is when I 
recede from it. But how can I know that I am near the desk 
or far from it? What do these expressions mean? Their full 
meaning will become clearer in the next chapter, but here I may 
say that nearness and remoteness must be measured for me 
in experiences of some sort, or I would never know anything 
as near to or far from my body. 

Thus, all our sensory experiences are experiences that fall 
into a certain system or order. It is a system which we all 
recognize implicitly, for we all reject as merely imaginary those 
experiences which lack this setting. If my eyes are shut — 
I am speaking now of the eyes as experienced, as felt or per- 
ceived, as given in sensation — I never say: " I see my desk," 
no matter how vivid the image of the object. Those who be- 
lieve in " second sight " sometimes talk of seeing things not 
in this setting, but the very name they give to the supposed 
experience indicates that there is something abnormal about 
it. No one thinks it remarkable that I see the desk before 
which I perceive myself to be sitting with open eyes. Every one 
would think it strange if I could see and describe the table 
in the next room, now shut away from me. When a man thinks 
he hears his name pronounced, and, turning his head, seeks in 
vain for the speaker, he sets his experience down as a hallucina- 
tion. He says, I did not really hear that ; I merely imagined it. 

May one not, with open eyes, have a hallucination of vision, 
just as one may seem to hear one's name pronounced when no 
one is by? Certainly. But in each case the experience may 
be proved to be a hallucination, nevertheless. It may be recog- 
nized that the sensory setting is incomplete, though it may not, 



48 An l7itroductio7i to Philosophy 

at first, seem so. Thus the unreal object which seems to be seen 
may be found to be a thing that cannot be touched. Or, when 
one has attained to a relatively complete knowledge of the sys- 
tem of experiences recognized as sensory, one may make use 
of roundabout methods of ascertaining that the experience in 
question does not really have the right setting. Thus, the ghost 
which is seen by the terrified peasant at midnight, but which 
cannot be photographed, we may unhesitatingly set down as 
something imagined and not really seen. 

All our sensations are, therefore, experiences which take their 
place in a certain setting. This is our ultimate criterion. We 
need not take the word of the philosopher for it. We need only 
reflect, and ask ourselves how we know that, in a given case, 
we are seeing or hearing or touching something, and are not 
merely imagining it. In every case, we shall find that we come 
back to the same test. In common life, we apply the test 
instinctively, and with little realization of what we are doing. 

And if we turn to the psychologist, whose business it is to 
be more exact and scientific, we find that he gives us only a 
refinement of this same criterion. It is important to him to 
distinguish between what is given in sensation and what is 
furnished by memory or imagination, and he tells us that sen- 
sation is the result of a message conducted along a sensory 
nerve to the brain. 

Here we see emphasized the relation to the body which has 
been mentioned above. If we ask the psychologist how he 
knows that the body he is talking about is a real body, and not 
merely an imagined one, he has to fall back upon the test which 
is common to us all. A real hand is one which we see with 
the eyes open, and which we touch with the other hand. If 
our experiences of our own body had not the setting which 
marks all sensory experiences, we could never say: I •perceive 
tha,t my body is near the desk. When we call our body real, 
as contrasted with things imaginary, we recognize that this 



Sensations and " Thi7igs " 49 

group of experiences belongs to the class described; it is given 
in sensation, and is not merely thought of. 

It will be observed that, in distinguishing between sensations 
and things imaginary, we never go beyond the circle of our 
experiences. We do not reach out to a something beyond 
or behind experiences, and say: When such a reality is present, 
we may affirm that we have a sensation, and when it is not, 
we may call the experience imaginary. If there were such a 
reality as this, it would do us little good, for since it is not sup- 
posed to be perceived directly, we should have to depend upon 
the sensations to prove the presence of the reahty, and could 
not turn to the reality and ask it whether we were or were not 
experiencing a sensation. The distinction between sensations 
and what is imaginary is an observed distinction. It can be 
proved that some experiences are sensory and that some are not. 
This means that, in drawing the distinction, we remain within 
the circle of our experiences. 

There has been much unnecessary mystification touching 
this supposed reality behind experiences. In the next chapter 
w^e shall see in what senses the word " reality " may properly be 
used, and in what sense it may not. There is a danger in using 
it loosely and vaguely. 

16. May we call "Things" Groups of Sensations? — Now, 
the external world seems to the plain man to be directly given 
in his sense experiences. He is willing to admit that the table 
in the next room, of which he is merely thinking, is known at 
one remove, so to speak. But this desk here before him : is it 
not known directly? Not the mental image, the mere represen- 
tative, but the desk itself, a something that is physical and not 
mental ? 

And the psychologist, whatever his theory of the relation 
between the mind and the world, seems to support him, at least, 
in so far as to maintain that in sensation the external world is 
known as directly as it is possible for the external world to be 



50 An Introduction to Philosophy 

known, and that one can get no more of it than is presented 
in sensation. If a sense is lacking, an aspect of the world as 
given is also lacking; if a sense is defective, as in the color- 
blind, the defect is reflected in the world upon which one gazes. 

Such considerations, especially when taken together with 
what has been said at the close of the last section about the 
futihty of looking for a reality behind our sensations, may easily 
suggest rather a startling possibility. May it not be, if we really 
are shut up to the circle of our experiences, that the physical 
things, which we have been accustomed to look upon as non- 
mental, are nothing more than complexes of sensations? Granted 
that there seems to be presented in our experience a material 
world as well as a mind, may it not be that this material world 
is a mental thing of a certain kind — a mental thing contrasted 
with other mental things, such as imaginary things? 

This question has always been answered in the affirmative 
by the idealists, who claim that all existence must be regarded 
as psychical existence. Their doctrine we shall consider later 
(§§49 and 53). It will be noticed that we seem to be back again 
with Professor Pearson in the last chapter. 

To this question I make the following answer: In the first 
place, I remark that even the plain man distinguishes somehow 
between his sensations and external things. He thinks that he 
has reason to believe that things do not cease to exist when he 
no longer has sensations. Moreover, he believes that things 
do not always appear to his senses as they really are. If we 
tell him that his sensations are the things, it shocks his common 
sense. He answers: Do you mean to tell me that complexes 
of sensation can be on a shelf or in a drawer ? can be cut with 
a knife or broken with the hands? He feels that there must 
be some real distinction between sensations and the things 
without him. 

Now, the notions of the plain man on such matters as these 
are not very clear, and what he says about sensations and things 



Sensations a7id " Things " 51 

is not always edifying. But it is clear that he feels strongly 
that the man who would identify them is obhterating a distinc- 
tion to which his experience testifies unequivocally. We must 
not hastily disregard his protest. He is sometimes right in his 
feeling that things are not identical, even when he cannot 
prove it. 

In the second place, I remark that, in this instance, the plain 
man is in the right, and can be shown to be in the right. 
"Things" are not groups of sensations. The distinction be- 
tween them will be explained in the next section. 

17. The Distinction between Sensations and " Things." — 
Suppose that I stand in my study and look at the fire in the grate. 
I am experiencing sensations, and am not busied merely with 
an imaginary fire. But may my whole experience of the fire 
be summed up as an experience of sensations and their changes? 
Let us see. 

If I shut my eyes, the fire disappears. Does any one suppose 
that the fire has been annihilated ? No. We say, I no longer 
see it, but nothing has happened to the fire. 

Again, I may keep my eyes open, and simply turn my head. 
The fire disappears once more. Does any one suppose that 
my turning my head has done anything to the fire? We say 
unhesitatingly, my sensations have changed, but the fire has 
remained as it was. 

Still, again, I may withdraw from the fire. Its heat seems 
to be diminished. Has the fire really grown less hot ? And if 
I could withdraw to a sufficient distance, I know that the fire 
would appear to me smaller and less bright. Could I get far 
enough away to make it seem the faintest speck in the field of 
vision, would I be tempted to claim that the fire shrunk and 
grew faint merely because I walked away from it ? Surely not. 

Now, suppose that I stand on the same spot and look at the 
fire without turning my head. The stick at which I am gazing 
catches the flame, blazes up, turns red, and finally falls together, 



52 An Introduction to Philosophy 

a little mass of gray ashes. Shall I describe this by saying that 
my sensations have changed, or may I say that the fire itself has 
changed ? The plain man and the philosopher ahke use the 
latter expression in such a case as this. 

Let us take another illustration. I walk towards the distant 
house on the plain before me. What I see as my goal seems to 
grow larger and brighter. It does not occur to me to maintain 
that the house changes as I advance. But, at a given instant, 
changes of a different sort make their appearance. Smoke 
arises, and flames burst from the roof. Now I have no hesita- 
tion in saying that changes are taking place in the house. It 
would seem foolish to describe the occurrence as a mere change 
in my sensations. Before it was my sensations that changed; 
now it is the house itself. 

We are drawing this distinction between changes in our sen- 
sations and changes in things at every hour in the day. I 
cannot move without making things appear and disappear. If 
I wag my head, the furniture seems to dance, and I regard it 
as a mere seeming. I count on the clock's going when I no 
longer look upon its face. It would be absurd to hold that the 
distinction is a mere blunder, and has no foundation in our 
experience. The role it plays is too important for that. If 
we obliterate it, the real world of material things which seems 
to be revealed in our experience melts into a chaos of fantastic 
experiences whose appearances and disappearances seem to 
be subject to no law. 

And it is worthy of remark that it is not merely in common hfe 
that the distinction is drawn. Every man of science must give 
heed to it. The psychologist does, it is true, pay much atten- 
tion to sensations; but even he distinguishes between the sen- 
sations which he is studying and the material things to whic 
he relates them, such as brains and sense-organs. And those 
who cultivate the physical sciences strive, when they give an 
account of things and their behavior, to lay before us a history 



^e 

i 



Sensations and " Things'''' 53 

of changes analogous to the burning of the stick and of the house, 
excluding mere changes in sensations. 

There is no physicist or botanist or zoologist who has not 
our common experience that things as perceived by us — our 
experiences of things — appear or disappear or change their 
character when we open or shut our eyes or move about. But 
nothing of all this appears in their books. What they are con- 
cerned with is things and their changes, and they do not con- 
sider such matters as these as falling within their province. 
If a botanist could not distinguish between the changes which 
take place in a plant, and the changes which take place in his 
sensations as he is occupied in studying the plant, but should 
tell us that the plant grows smaller as one recedes from it, we 
should set him down as weak-minded. 

That the distinction is everywhere drawn, and that we must 
not obliterate it, is very evident. But we are in the presence 
of what has seemed to many men a grave difficulty. Are not 
things presented in our experience only as we have sensations? 
what is it to perceive a thing? is it not to have sensations? 
how, then, can we distinguish be ween sensations and things? 
We certainly do so all the time, in spite of the protest of the 
philosopher; but many of us do so with a haunting sense that 
our behavior can scarcely be justified by the reason. 

Our difficulty, however, springs out of an error of our own. 
Grasping imperfectly the full significance of the word " sen- 
sation," we extend its use beyond what is legitimate, and we 
call by that name experiences which are not sensations at all. 
Thus the external world comes to seem to us to be not really 
a something contrasted with the mental, but a part of the mental 
world. We accord to it the attributes of the latter, and rob 
it of those distinguishing attributes which belong to it by right. 
When we have done this, we may feel impelled to say, as did 
Professor Pearson, that things are not really " outside " of us, 
as they seem to be, but are merely " projected " outside — 



54 -^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

thought of as if they were " outside." All this I must explain 
at length. 

Let us come back to the first of the illustrations given above, 
the case of the fire in my study. As I stand and look at it, 
what shall I call the red glow which I observe? Shall I call it 
a quality of a thing, or shall I call it a sensation ? 

To this I answer : I may call it either the one or the other, ac- 
cording to its setting among other experiences. 

We have seen (§ 15) that sensations and things merely im- 
aginary are distinguished from one another by their setting. 
With open eyes we see things; with our eyes closed we can 
imagine them: we see what is before us; we imagine what hes 
behind our backs. If we confine our attention to the bit of 
experience itself, we have no means of determining whether 
it is sensory or imaginary. Only its setting can decide that point. 

Here, we have come to another distinction of much the same 
sort. That red glow, that bit of experience, taken by itself 
and abstracted from all other experiences, cannot be called 
either a sensation or the quahty of a thing. Only its context 
can give us the right to call it the one or the other. 

This ought to become clear when we reflect upon the illus- 
tration of the fire. We have seen that one whole series of changes 
has been unhesitatingly described as a series of changes in my 
sensations. Why was this? Because it was observed to de- 
pend upon changes in the relations of my body, my senses 
(a certain group of experiences), to the bit of experience I call 
the fire. Another series was described as a series of changes 
in the fire. Why? Because, the relation to my senses remain- 
ing unchanged, changes still took place, and had to be accounted 
for in other ways. 

It is a matter of common knowledge that they can be accounted 
for in other ways. This is not a discovery of the philosopher. 
He can only invite us to think over the matter and see what the 
unlearned and the learned are doing at every moment. Some- 



Sensations and " Things'''' 55 

times they are noticing that experiences change as they turn 
their heads or walk toward or away from objects; sometimes 
they abstract from this, and consider the series of changes that 
take place independently of this. 

That bit of experience, that red glow, is not related only to 
my body. Such experiences are related also to each other; they 
stand in a vast independent system of relations, which, as we 
have seen, the man of science can study without troubling him- 
self to consider sensations at all. This system is the external 
world — the external world as known or as knowable, the only 
external world that it means anything for us to talk about. As 
having its place in this system, a bit of experience is not a sen- 
sation, but is a quality or aspect of a thing. 

Sensations, then, to be sensations, must be bits of experience 
considered in their relation to some organ of sense. They should 
never be confused with quahties of things, which are experi- 
ences in a different setting. It is as unpardonable to confound 
the two as it is to confound sensations with things imaginary. 

We may not, therefore, say that " things " are groups of 
sensations. We may, if we please, describe them as complexes 
of qualities. And we may not say that the " things " we per- 
ceive are really " inside " of us and are merely " projected 
outside." 

What can " inside " and " outside " mean? Only this. We 
recognize in our experience two distinct orders, the objective 
order, the system of phenomena which constitutes the material 
world, and the subjective order, the order of things mental, to 
which belong sensations and " ideas." That is "outside " 
which belongs to the objective order. The word has no other 
meaning when used in this connection. That is "inside" 
which belongs to the subjective order, and is contrasted with the 
former. 

If we deny that there is an objective order, an external world, 
and say that everything is " inside," we lose our distinction, 



56 All hitroduction to Philosophy 

and even the word " inside " becomes meaningless. It indi- 
cates no contrast. When men fall into the error of talking in 
this way, what they do is to keep the external world and gain 
the distinction, and at the same time to deny the existence of the 
world which has furnished it. In other words, they put the 
clerk into a telephone exchange, and then tell us that the ex- 
change does not really exist. He is inside — of what ? He 
is inside of nothing. Then, can he really be inside ? 

We see, thus, that the plain man and the man of science are 
quite right in accepting the external world. The objective order 
is known as directly as is the subjective order. Both are orders 
of experiences; they are open to observation, and we have, 
in general, little difficulty in distinguishing between them, as 
the illustrations given above amply prove. 

18. The Existence of Material Things. — One difficulty seems 
to remain and to call for a solution. We all believe that mate- 
rial things exist when we no longer perceive them. We beheve 
that they existed before they came within the field of our ob- 
servation. 

In these positions the man of science supports us. The 
astronomer has no hesitation in saying that the comet, which 
has sailed away through space, exists, and will return. The 
geologist describes for us the world as it was in past ages, when 
no eye was opened upon it. 

But has it not been stated above that the material world is 
an order of experiences ? and can there be such a thing as an 
experience that is not experienced by somebody? In other 
words, can the world exist, except as it is perceived to exist? 

This seeming difficulty has occasioned much trouble to phi- 
losophers in the past. Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753) said, 
"To exist is to be perceived." There are those who agree with 
him at the present day. 

Their difficulty would have disappeared had they examined 
with sufficient care the meaninsr of the word " exist." We 



Sensatio7is and " Things " 57 

have no right to pass over the actual uses of such words, and to 
give them a meaning of our own. If one thing seems as certain 
as any other, it is that material things exist when we do not 
perceive them. On what ground may the philosopher combat 
the universal opinion, the dictum of common sense and of 
science? When we look into his reasonings, we find that he 
is influenced by the error discussed at length in the last section 
— he has confused the phenomena of the two orders of experi- 
ence. 

I have said that, when we concern ourselves with the objec- 
tive order, we abstract or should abstract, from the relations 
which things bear to our senses. We account for phenomena 
by referring to other phenomena which we have reason to accept 
as their physical conditions or causes. We do not consider 
that a physical cause is effective only while ,we perceive it. 
When we come back to this notion of our perceiving a thing or 
net perceiving it, we have left the objective order and passed 
over to the subjective. We have left the consideration of 
" things " and have turned to sensations. 

There is no reason why we should do this. The physical 
order is an independent order, as we have seen. The man of 
science, when he is endeavoring to discover whether some thing 
or quality of a thing really existed at some time in the past, is 
not in the least concerned to establish the fact that some one saw 
it. No one ever saw the primitive fire-mist from which, as we 
are told, the world came into being. But the scientist cares 
little for that. He is concerned only to prove that the phenom- 
ena he is investigating really have a place in the objective 
order. If he decides that they have, he is satisfied; he has 
proved something to exist. To belong to the objective order is 
to exist as a physical thing or quality. 

When the plain man and the man of science maintain that 
a physical thing exists, they use the word in precisely the same 
sense. The meaning they give to it is the proper meaning of 



58 An Introductio7i to Philosophy 

the word. It is justified by immemorial usage, and it marks 
a real distinction. Shall we allow the philosopher to tell us 
that we must not use it in this sense, but must say that only 
sensations and ideas exist ? Surely not. This would mean that 
we permit him to obliterate for us the distinction between the 
external world and what is mental. 

But is it right to use the word " experience" to indicate the 
phenomena which have a place in the objective order? Can 
an experience be anything but mental ? 

There can be no doubt that the suggestions of the word are 
unfortunate — it has what we may call a subjective flavor. 
It suggests that, after all, the things we perceive are sensations 
or percepts, and must, to exist at all, exist in a mind. As we have 
seen, this is an error, and an error which we all avoid in actual 
practice. We do not take sensations for things, and we recog- 
nize clearly enough that it is one thing for a material object 
to exist and another for it to be perceived. 

Why, then, use the word " experience " ? Simply because 
we have no better word. We must use it, and not be misled 
by the associations which cHng to it. The word has this great 
advantage : it brings out clearly the fact that all our knowledge 
of the external world rests ultimately upon those phenomena 
which, when we consider them in relation to our senses, we recog- 
nize as sensations. We cannot start out from mere imaginings 
to discover what the world was like in the ages past. 

It is this truth that is recognized by the plain man, when he 
maintains that, in the last resort, we can know things only in 
so far as we see, touch, hear, taste, and smell them; and by the 
psychologist, when he tells us that, in sensation, the external 
world is revealed as directly as it is possible that it could be 
revealed. But it is a travesty on this truth to say that we do 
not know things, but know only our sensations of sight, touch, 
taste, hearing, and the like.^ 

^ See the note on this chapter at the close of the volume. 



CHAPTER V 
APPEARANCES AND REALITIES 

19. Things and their Appearances. — We have seen in the 
last chapter that there is an external world and that it is given 
in our experience. There is an objective order, and we are 
all capable of distinguishing between it and the subjective. 
He who says that we perceive only sensations and ideas flies 
in the face of the common experience of mankind. 

But we are not yet through with the subject. We all make 
a distinction between things as they appear and things as they 
really are. 

If we ask the plain man, What is the real external world? 
the first answer that seems to present itself to his mind is this: 
Whatever we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell may be 
regarded as belonging to the real world. What we merely 
imagine does not belong to it. 

That this answer is not a very satisfactory one occurred to 
men's minds very early in the history of reflective thought. 
The ancient skeptic said to himself: The colors of objects vary 
according to the light, and according to the position and dis- 
tance of the objects; can we say that any object has a real 
color of its own? A staff stuck into water looks bent, but feels 
straight to the touch; why beheve the testimony of one sense 
rather than that of another? 

Such questionings led to far-reaching consequences. They 
resulted in a forlorn distrust of the testimony of the senses, 
and to a doubt as to our ability to know anything as it 
really is. 

Now, the distinction between appearances and realities 

59 



6o An l7itroduction to P hilosophy 

exists for us as well as for the ancient skeptic, and without being 
tempted to make such extravagant statements as that there is 
no such thing as truth, and that every appearance is as real 
as any other, we may admit that it is not very easy to see the 
full significance of the distinction, although we are referring 
to it constantly. 

For example, we look from our window and see, as we say, 
a tree at a distance. What we are conscious of is a small bluish 
patch of color. Now, a small bluish patch of color is not, 
strictly speaking, a tree; but for us it represents the tree. Sup- 
pose that we walk toward the tree. Do we continue to see 
what we saw before? Of course, we say that we continue to 
see the same tree; but it is plain that what we immediately 
perceive, what is given in consciousness, does not remain the 
same as we move. Our blue patch of color grows larger and 
larger; it ceases to be blue and faint; at the last it has been 
replaced by an expanse of vivid green, and we see the tree just 
before us. 

During our whole walk we have been seeing the tree. This 
appears to mean that we have been having a whole series of 
visual experiences, no two of which were just alike, and each of 
which was taken as a representative of the tree. Which of 
these representatives is most like the tree? Is the tree really 
a faint blue, or is it really a vivid green? Or is it of some inter- 
mediate color? 

Probably most persons will be inclined to maintain that the 
tree only seems blue at a distance, but that it really is green, as 
it appears when one is close to it. In a sense, the statement 
is just; yet some of those who make it would be puzzled to 
tell by what right they pick out of the whole series of experiences, 
each of which represents the tree as seen from some particular 
position, one individual experience, which they claim not only 
represents the tree as seen from a given point but also represents 
it as it is. Does this particular experience bear some peculiar 



Appearances and Realities 6i 

earmark which tells us that it is like the real tree while the others 
are unlike it ? 

20. Real Things. — And what is this real tree that we are 
supposed to see as it is when we are close to it ? 

About two hundred years ago the philosopher Berkeley pointed 
out that the distinction commonly made between things as they 
look, the apparent, and things as they are, the real, is at bottom 
the distinction between things as presented to the sense of sight 
and things as presented to the sense of touch. The acute 
analysis which he made has held its own ever since. 

We have seen that, in walking towards the tree, we have a 
long series of visual experiences, each of which differs more or 
less from all of the others. Nevertheless, from the beginning 
of our progress to the end, we say that we are looking at the 
same tree. The images change color and grow larger. We 
do not say that the tree changes color and grows larger. Why 
do we speak as we do? It is because, all along the line, we 
mean by the real tree, not what is given to the sense of sight, 
but something for which this stands as a sign. This something 
must be given in our experience somewhere, we must be able 
to perceive it under some circumstances or other, or it would 
never occur to us to recognize the visual experiences as signs, 
and we should never say that in being conscious of them in suc- 
cession we are looking at the same tree. They are certainly 
not the same with each other; how can we know that they all 
stand for the same thing, unless we have had experience of a 
connection of the whole series with one thing? 

This thing for which so many different visual experiences may 
ser^^e as signs is the thing revealed in experiences of touch. 
When we ask: In what direction is the tree? How far away is 
the tree ? How big is the tree ? we are always referring to the 
tree revealed in touch. It is nonsense to say that what we see 
is far away, if by what we see we mean the visual experience 
itself. As soon as we move we lose that visual experience and 



62 An Introduction to Philosophy 

get another, and to recover the one we lost we must go back 
where we were before. When we say we see a tree at a distance, 
we must mean, then, that we know from certain visual experi- 
ences which we have that by moving a certain distance we will 
be able to touch a tree. And what does it mean to move a 
certain distance? In the last analysis it means to us to have 
a certain quantity of movement sensations. 

Thus the real world of things, for which experiences of sight 
serve as signs, is a world revealed in experiences of touch and 
movement, and when we speak of real positions, distances, and 
magnitudes, we are always referring to this world. But this 
is a world revealed in our experience, and it does not seem a 
hopeless task to discover what may properly be called real and 
what should be described as merely apparent, when both the 
real and the apparent are open to our inspection. 

Can we not find in this analysis a satisfactory explanation of 
the plain man's claim that under certain circumstances he sees 
the tree as it is and under others he does not ? What he is 
really asserting is that one visual experience gives him better 
information regarding the real thing, the touch thing, than does 
another. 

But what shall we say of his claim that the tree is really 
green, and only looks blue under certain circumstances? Is 
it not just as true that the tree only looks green under certain 
circumstances? Is color any part of the touch thing? Is it 
ever more than a sign of the touch thing? How can one color 
be more real than another? 

Now, we may hold to Berkeley's analysis and maintain that, 
in general, the real world, as contrasted with the apparent, 
means to us the world that is revealed in experiences of touch 
and movement; and yet we may admit that the word " real " 
is sometimes used in rather different senses. 

It does not seem absurd for a woman to say: This piece of 
silk really is yellow; it only looks white under this light. We 



Appearances and Realities 63 

all admit that a white house may look pink under the rays of 
the setting sun, and we never call it a pink house. We have 
seen that it is not unnatural to say: That tree is really green; 
it is only its distance that makes it look blue. 

When one reflects upon these uses of the word " real," one 
recognizes the fact that, among all the experiences in which 
things are revealed to us, certain experiences impress us as being 
more prominent or important or serviceable than certain others, 
and they come to be called real. Things are not commonly 
seen by artificial light; the sun is not always setting; the tree 
looks green when it is seen most satisfactorily. In each case, the 
real color of the thing is the color that it has under circumstances 
that strike us as normal or as important. We cannot say that 
we always regard as most real that aspect under which we most 
commonly perceive things, for if a more unusual experience is 
more serviceable and really gives us more information about 
the thing, we give the preference to that. Thus we look with 
the naked eye at a moving speck on the table before us, and we 
are unable to distinguish its parts. We place a microscope 
over the speck and perceive an insect with all its members. The 
second experience is the more unusual one, but would not 
every one say : Now we perceive the thing as it is ? 

21. Ultimate Real Things. — Let us turn away from the 
senses of the word " real," which recognize one color or taste 
or odor as more real than another, and come back to the real 
world of things presented in sensations of touch. All other 
classes of sensations may be regarded as related to this as the 
series of visual experiences above mentioned was related to 
the one tree which was spoken of as revealed in them all, the 
touch tree of which they gave information. 

Can we say that this world is always to be regarded as reahty and 
never as appearance? We have already seen (§8) that science 
does not regard as anything more than appearance the real 
things which seem to be directly presented in our experience. 



64 An Introduction to Philosophy 

This pen that I hold in my hand seems, as I pass my fingers 
over it, to be continuously extended. It does not appear to 
present an alternation of filled spaces and empty spaces. I 
am told that it is composed of molecules in rapid motion and 
at considerable distances from one another. I am further 
told that each molecule is composed of atoms, and is, in its 
turn, not a continuous thing, but, so to speak, a group of Httle 
things. 

If I accept this doctrine, as it seems I must, am I not forced 
to conclude that the reality which is given in my experience, 
the reality with which I have contrasted appearances and to 
which I have referred them, is, after all, itself only an appear- 
ance? The touch things which I have hitherto regarded as 
the real things that make up the external world, the touch things 
for which all my visual experiences have served as signs, are, 
then, not themselves real external things, but only the appear- 
ances under which real external things, themselves impercept- 
ible, manifest themselves to me. 

It seems, then, that I do not directly perceive any real thing, 
or, at least, anything that can be regarded as more than an 
appearance. What, then, is the external world? What are 
things really like? Can we give any true account of them, or 
are we forced to say with the skeptics that we only know how 
things seem to us, and must abandon the attempt to tell what 
they are really like? 

Now, before one sets out to answer a question it is well to 
find out whether it is a sensible question to ask and a sensible 
question to try to answer. He who asks: Where is the middle 
of an infinite fine? When did all time begin? Where is 
space as a whole? does not deserve a serious answer to his 
questions. And it is well to remember that he who asks : What 
is the external world like? must keep his question a significant 
one, if he is to retain his right to look for an answer at all. He 
has manifestly no right to ask us : How does the external world 



Appearartces and Realities 65 

look when no one is looking? How do things feel when no one 
feels them? How shall I think of things, not as I think of them, 
but as they are? 

If we are to give an account of the external world at all, it 
must evidently be an account of the external world; i.e. it must 
be given in terms of our experience of things. The only legiti- 
mate problem is to give a true account instead of a false one, 
to distinguish between what only appears and is not real and 
what both appears and is real. 

Bearing this in mind, let us come back to the plain man's 
experience of the world. He certainly seems to himself to per- 
ceive a real world of things, and he constantly distinguishes, 
in a way very serviceable to himself, between the merely appar- 
ent and the real. There is, of course, a sense in which every 
experience is real; it is, at least, an experience; but when he 
contrasts real and apparent he means something more than 
this. Experiences are not relegated to this class or to that 
merely at random, but the final decision is the outcome of a 
long experience of the differences which characterize different 
individual experiences and is an expression of the relations 
which are observed to hold between them. Certain experiences 
are accepted as signs, and certain others come to take the more 
dignified position of thing signified; the mind rests in them 
and regards them as the real. 

We have seen above that the world of real things in which 
the plain man finds himself is a world of objects revealed in 
experiences of touch. When he asks regarding anything : How 
far away is it ? How big is it ? In what direction is it ? it is 
always the touch thing that interests him. What is given to 
the other senses is only a sign of this. 

We have also seen (§8) that the world of atoms and mole- 
cules of which the man of science tells us is nothing more than 
a further development of the world of the plain man. The 
real things with which science concerns itself are, after all, only 



66 An Introduction to Philosophy 

minute touch things, conceived just as are the things with which 
the plain man is famihar. They exist in space and move about 
in space, as the things about us are perceived to exist in space 
and move about in space. They have size and position, and are 
separated by distances. We do not perceive them, it is true; 
but we conceive them after the analogy of the things that we 
do perceive, and it is not inconceivable that, if our senses were 
vastly more acute, we might perceive them directly. 

Now, when we conclude that the things directly perceptible 
to the sense of touch are to be regarded as appearances, as signs 
of the presence of these minuter things, do we draw such a con- 
clusion arbitrarily? By no means. The distinction between 
appearance and reality is drawn here just as it is drawn in the 
world of our common everyday experiences. The great ma- 
jority of the touch things about us we are not actually touching 
at any given moment. We only see the things, i.e. we have 
certain signs of their presence. None the less we believe that 
the things exist all the time. And in the same way the man of 
science does not doubt the existence of the real things of which 
he speaks; he perceives their signs. That certain experiences 
are to be taken as signs of such realities he has established by 
innumerable observations and careful deductions from those 
observations. To see the full force of his reasonings one must 
read some work setting forth the history of the atomic theory. 

If, then, we ask the question : What is the real external 
world ? it is clear that we cannot answer it satisfactorily without 
taking into consideration the somewhat shifting senses of the 
word " real." What is the real external world to the plain 
man? It is the world of touch things, of objects upon which 
he can lay his hands. What is the real external world to the 
man of science? It is the world of atoms and molecules, of 
minuter touch things that he cannot actually touch, but which 
he conceives as though he could touch them. 

It should be observed that the man of science has no right to 



I 



Appearances and Realities 67 

deny the real world which is revealed in the experience of the 
plain man. In all his dealings with the things which interest 
him. in common life, he refers to this world just as the plain 
man does. He sees a tree and walks towards it, and distinguishes 
between its real and its apparent color, its real and its apparent 
size. He talks about seeing things as they are, or not seeing 
things as they are. These distinctions in his experience of things 
remain even after he has come to beheve in atoms and molecules. 

Thus, the touch object, the tree as he feels it under his hand, 
may come to be regarded as the sign of the presence of those 
entities that science seems, at present, to regard as ultimate. 
Does this prevent it from being the object which has stood as 
the interpreter of all those diverse visual sensations that we 
have called different views of the tree? They are still the ap- 
pearances, and it, relatively to them, is the reahty. Now we 
find that it, in its turn, can be used as a sign of something else, 
can be regarded as an appearance of a reality more ultimate. 
It is clear, then, that the same thing may be regarded both as 
appearance and as reality — appearance as contrasted with one 
thing, and reality as contrasted with another. 

But suppose one says : 1 do not want to know what the real 
external world is to this man or to that man; I want to know what 
the real external world is. What shall we say to such a demand ? 

There is a sense in which such a demand is not purely mean- 
ingless, though it may not be a very sensible demand to make. 
We have seen that an increase of knowledge about things com- 
pels a man to pass from the real things of common life to the 
real things of science, and to look upon the former as appear- 
ance. Now, a man may arbitrarily decide that he will use the 
word " reality " to indicate only that which can never in its turn 
be regarded as appearance, a reality which must remain an ulti- 
mate reahty; and he may insist upon our telhng him about that. 
How a man not a soothsayer can tell when he has come to ulti- 
mate reahty, it is not easy to see.' 



68 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Suppose, however, that we could give any one such informa- 
tion. We should then be telling him about things as they are, 
it is true, but his knowledge of things would not be different in 
kind from what it was before. The only difference between 
such a knowledge of things and a knowledge of things not 
known to be ultimate would be that, in the former case, it would 
be recognized that no further extension of knowledge was pos- 
sible. The distinction between appearance and reality would 
remain just what it was in the experience of the plain man. 

22. The Bugbear of the "Unknowable." — It is very impor- 
tant to recognize that we must not go on talking about appear- 
ance and reality, as if our words really meant something, when 
we have quite turned our backs upon our experience of appear- 
ances and the reahties which they represent. 

That appearances and realities are connected we know very 
well, for we perceive them to be connected. What we see, we 
can touch. And we not only know that appearances and real- 
ities are connected, but we know with much detail what ap- 
pearances are to be taken as signs of what realities. The visual 
experience which I call the house as seen from a distance I 
never think of taking for a representative of the hat which I 
hold in my hand. This visual experience I refer to its own 
appropriate touch thing, and not to another. If what looks 
like a beefsteak could really he a fork or a mountain or a kitten 
indifferently, — but I must not even finish the sentence, for 
the words " look like " and " could really be " lose all signifi- 
cance when we loosen the bond between appearances and the 
realities to which they are properly referred. 

Each appearance, then, must be referred to some particular 
real thing and not to any other. This is true of the appearances 
which we recognize as such in common life, and it is equally 
true of the appearances recognized as such in science. The 
pen which I feel between my fingers I may regard as appearance 
and refer to a swarm of moving atoms. But it would be silly 



Appearances and Realities 69 

for me to refer it to atoms " in general." The reality to which 
I refer the appearance in question is a particular group of atoms 
existing at a particular point in space. The chemist never sup- 
poses that the atoms within the walls of his test-tube are identical 
with those in the vial on the shelf. Neither in common life nor 
in science would the distinction between appearances and real 
things be of the smallest service were it not possible to distin- 
guish between this appearance and that, and this reality and 
that, and to refer each appearance to its appropriate reality. 
Indeed, it is inconceivable that, under such circumstances, the 
distinction should have been drawn at all. 

These points ought to be strongly insisted upon, for we find 
certain philosophic writers falling constantly into a very curious 
abuse of the distinction and making much capital of it. It is 
argued that what we see, what we touch, what we conceive as 
a result of scientific observation and reflection — all is, in the 
last analysis, material which is given us in sensation. The 
various senses furnish us with different classes of sensations; 
we work these up into certain complexes. But sensations are 
only the impressions which something outside of us makes upon 
us. Hence, although we seem to ourselves to know the external 
world as it is, our knowledge can never extend beyond the im- 
pressions made upon us. Thus, we are absolutely shut up to 
appearances, and can know nothing about the reality to which 
they must be referred. 

Touching this matter Herbert Spencer writes * as follows : 
" When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us 
as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can 
know only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by 
the relativity of thought, compelled to think of these in relation 
to a cause — the notion of a real existence which generated 
these impressions becomes nascent. If it be proved that every 
notion of a real existence which we can frame is inconsistent 
1 " First Principles," Part I, Chapter IV, § 26. 



70 An Introduction to Philosophy 

with itself, — that matter, however conceived by us, cannot be 
matter as it actually is, — our conception, though transfigured, 
is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reahty, dissociated 
as far as possible from those special forms under which it was 
before represented in thought." 

This means, in plain language, that we must regard every- 
thing we know and can know as appearance and must refer it 
to an unknown reality. Sometimes Mr. Spencer calls this reahty 
the Unknowable, sometimes he calls it the Absolute, and some- 
times he allows it to pass by a variety of other names, such as 
Power, Cause, etc. He wishes us to think of it as " lying behind 
appearances " or as " underlying appearances." 

Probably it has already been remarked that this Unknowable 
has brought us around again to that amusing " telephone 
exchange " discussed in the third chapter. But if the reader 
feels within himself the least weakness for the Unknowable, 
I beg him to consider carefully, before he pins his faith to it, 
the following : — 

(i) If we do perceive external bodies, our own bodies and 
others, then it is conceivable that we may have evidence from 
observation to the effect that other bodies affecting our bodies 
may give rise to sensations. In this case we cannot say that 
we know nothing but sensations ; we know real bodies as well 
as sensations, and we may refer the sensations to the real 
bodies. 

(2) If we do not perceive that we have bodies, and that our 
bodies are acted upon by others, we have no evidence that what 
we call our sensations are due to messages which come from 
" external things " and are conducted along the nerves. It is, 
then, absurd to talk of such " external things " as though they 
existed, and to call them the reality to which sensations, as 
appearances, must be referred, 

(3) In other words, if there is perceived to be a telephone 
exchange with its wires and subscribers, we may refer the mes- 



Appearances and Realities 71 

sages received to the subscribers, and call this, if we choose, 
a reference of appearance to reality. 

But if there is perceived no telephone exchange, and if it is 
concluded that any wires or subscribers of which it means any- 
thing to speak must be composed of what we have heretofore 
called " messages," then it is palpably absurd to refer the 
''messages" as a whole to subscribers not supposed to be 
composed of "messages"; and it is a blunder to go on calhng 
the things that we know "messages," as though we had evidence 
that they came from, and must be referred to, something be- 
yond themselves. 

We must recognize that, with the general demolition of the 
exchange, we lose not only known subscribers, but the very 
notion of a subscriber. It will not do to try to save from this 
wreck some " unknowable " subscriber, and still pin our faith 
to him. 

(4) We have seen that the relation of appearance to reality 
is that of certain experiences to certain other experiences. 
When we take the liberty of calling the Unknowable a reality^ 
we blunder in our use of the word. The Unknowable cannot 
be an experience either actual, possible, or conceived as possible, 
and it cannot possibly hold the relation to any of our experiences 
that a real thing of any kind holds to the appearances that 
stand as its signs. 

(5) Finally, no man has ever made an assumption more per- 
fectly useless and purposeless than the assumption of the Un- 
knowable. We have seen that the distin tion between appear- 
ance and reality is a serviceable one, and it has been pointed 
out that it would be of no service whatever if it were not possible 
to refer particular appearances to their own appropriate real- 
ities. The realities to which we actually refer appearances serve 
to explain them. Thus, when I ask: Why do I perceive that 
tree now as faint and blue and now as vivid and green ? the 
answer to the question is found in the notion of distance and 



72 An Introduction to Philosophy 

position in space; it is found, in other words, in a reference to 
the real world of touch things, for which visual experiences 
serve as signs. Under certain circumstances, the mountain 
ought to be robed in its azure hue, and, under certain circum- 
stances, it ought not. The circumstances in each case are open 
to investigation. 

Now, let us substitute for the real world of touch things, which 
furnishes the explanation of given visual experiences, that 
philosophic fiction, that pseudo-real nonentity, the Unknowable. 
Now I perceive a tree as faint and blue, now as bright and green ; 
will a reference to the Unknowable explain why the experiences 
differed ? Was the Unknowable in the one instance farther off 
in an unknowable space, and in the other nearer? This, even 
if it means anything, must remain unknowable. And when 
the chemist puts together a volume of chlorine gas and a volume 
of hydrogen gas to get two volumes of hydrochloric acid gas, 
shall we explain the change which has taken place by a reference 
to the Unknowable, or shall we turn to the doctrine of atoms 
and their combinations? 

The fact is that no man in his senses tries to account for any 
individual fact by turning for an explanation to the Unknow- 
able. It is a life-preserver by which some set great store, but 
which no man dreams of using when he really falls into the 
water. 

If, then, we have any reason to believe that there is a real 
external world at all, we have reason to believe that we know 
what it is. That some know it imperfectly, that others know 
it better, and that we may hope that some day it will be known 
still more perfectly, is surely no good reason for concluding that 
we do not know it at all. 



CHAPTER VI 
OF SPACE 

23. What we are supposed to know about It. — The plain 
man may admit that he is not ready to hazard a definition of 
space, but he is certainly not willing to admit that he is wholly 
ignorant of space and of its attributes. He knows that it is 
something in which material objects have position and in which 
they move about; he knows that it has not merely length, like 
a line, nor length and breadth, like a surface, but has the three 
dimensions of length, breadth, and depth; he knows that, ex- 
cept in the one circumstance of its position, every part of space 
is exactly like every other part, and that, although objects may 
move about in space, it is incredible that the spaces themselves 
should be shifted about. 

Those who are familiar with the literature of the subject know 
that it has long been customary to make regarding space certain 
other statements to which the plain man does not usually make 
serious objection when he is introduced to them. Thus it is 
said : — 

(i) The idea of space is necessary. We can think of ob- 
jects in space as annihilated, but we cannot conceive space to 
be annihilated. We can clear space of things, but we cannot 
clear away space itself, even in thought. 

(2) Space must be infinite. We cannot conceive that we 
should come to the end of space. 

(3) Every space, however small, is infinitely divisible. 
That is to say, even the most minute space must be composed 
of spaces. We cannot, even theoretically, split a sohd into mere 
surfaces, a surface into mere lines, or a line into mere points. 

73 



74 -^^ httroduction to Philosophy 

Against such statements the plain man is not impelled to rise 
in rebellion, for he can see that there seems to be some ground 
for making them. He can conceive of any particular material 
object as annihilated, and of the place which it occupied as 
standing empty; but he cannot go on and conceive of the an- 
nihilation of this bit of empty space. Its annihilation would 
not leave a gap, for a gap means a bit of empty space; nor 
could it bring the surrounding spaces into juxtaposition, for 
one cannot shift spaces, and, in any case, a shifting that is 
not a shifting through space' is an absurdity. 

Again, he cannot conceive of any journey that would bring 
him to the end of space. There is no more reason for stopping 
at one point than at another; why not go on? What could end 
space? 

As to the infinite divisibility of space, have we not, in addi- 
tion to the seeming reasonableness of the doctrine, the testi- 
mony of all the mathematicians? Does any one of them ever 
dream of a line so short that it cannot be divided into two shorter 
lines, or of an angle so small that it cannot be bisected ? 

24. Space as Necessary and Space as Infinite. — That these 
statements about space contain truth one should not be in haste 
to deny. It seems silly to say that space can be annihilated, or 
that one can travel "over the mountains of the moon" in the 
hope of reaching the end of it. And certainly no prudent 
"man wishes to quarrel with that coldly rational creature the 
mathematician. 

But it is well worth while to examine the statements carefully 
and to see whether there is not some danger that they may be 
understood in such a way as to lead to error. Let us begin 
with the doctrine that space is necessary and cannot be "thought 
away." 

As we have seen above, it is manifestly impossible to anni- 
hilate in thought a certain portion of space and leave the other 
portions intact. There are many things in the same case. 



Of space 75 

We cannot annihilate in thought one side of a door and leave 
the other side; we cannot rob a man of the outside of his hat 
and leave him the inside. But we can conceive of a whole 
door as annihilated, and of a man as losing a whole hat. May 
we or may we not conceive of space as a whole as nonexistent ? 

I do not say, be it observed, can we conceive of something 
as attacking and annihilating space? Whatever space may be, 
we none of us think of it as a something that may be threatened 
and demohshed. I only say, may we not think of a system of 
things — not a world such as ours, of course, but still a system 
of things of some sort — in which space relations have no part ? 
May we not conceive such to be possible? 

It should be remarked that space relations are by no means 
the only ones in which we think of things as existing. We at- 
tribute to them time relations as well. Now, when we think 
of occurrences as related to each other in time, we do, in so far 
as we concentrate our attention upon these relations, turn our 
attention away from space and contemplate another aspect of 
the system of things. Space is not such a necessity of thought 
that we must keep thinking of space when we have turned our 
attention to something else. And is it, indeed, inconceivable 
that there should be a system of things (not extended things in 
space, of course), characterized by time relations and perhaps 
other relations, but not by space relations? 

It goes without saying that we cannot go on thinking of 
space and at the same time not think of space. Those who 
keep insisting upon space as a necessity of thought seem to set 
us such a task as this, and to found their conclusion upon our 
failure to accomplish it. "We can never represent to ourselves 
the nonexistence of space," says the German philosopher Kant 
(i 724-1804), "although we can easily conceive that there are 
no objects in space." 

It would, perhaps, be fairer to translate the first half of this 
sentence as follows: "We can never picture to ourselves the 



76 An Introduction to Philosophy 

nonexistence of space." Kant says we cannot make of it a 
V orstellung, a representation. This we may freely admit, for 
what does one try to do when one makes the effort to imagine 
the nonexistence of space? Does not one first clear space of 
objects, and then try to clear space of space in much the same 
way? We try to "think space away," i.e. to remove it from 
the place where it- was and yet keep that place. 

What does it mean to imagine or represent to oneself the 
nonexistence of material objects? Is it not to represent to 
oneself the objects as no longer in space, i.e. to imagine the 
space as empty, as cleared of the objects? It means something 
in this case to speak of a Vorstellung, or representation. We 
can call before our minds the empty space. But if we are to 
think of space as nonexistent, what shall we call before our 
minds? Our procedure must not be analogous to what it was 
before; we must not try to picture to our minds the absence 
of space, as though that were in itself a something that could be 
pictured; we must turn our attention to other relations, such as 
time relations, and ask whether it is not conceivable that such 
should be the only relations obtaining within a given system. 

Those who insist upon the fact that we cannot but conceive 
space as infinite employ a very similar argument to prove their 
point. They set us a self-contradictory task, and regard our 
failure to accomplish it as proof of their position. Thus, Sir 
Wilham Hamilton (i 788-1856) argues: "We are altogether 
unable to conceive space as bounded — as finite ; that is, as a 
whole beyond which there is no further space." And Herbert 
Spencer echoes approvingly: "We find ourselves totally unable 
to imagine bounds beyond which there is no space." 

Now, whatever one may be inclined to think about the in- 
finity of space, it is clear that this argument is an absurd one. 
Let me write it out more at length: "We are altogether unable 
to conceive space as bounded — as finite ; that is, as a whole 
in the space beyond which there is no further space." "We find 



Of space 'jy 

ourselves totally unable to imagine bounds, in the space beyond 
which there is no further space." The words which I have added 
were already present implicitly. What can the word "beyond" 
mean if it does not signify space beyond? What Sir WilHam 
and Mr. Spencer have asked us to do is to imagine a limited 
space with a beyond and yet no beyond. 

There is undoubtedly some reason why men are so ready to 
affirm that space is infinite, even while they admit that they do 
not know that the world of material things is infinite. To 
this we shall come back again later. But if one wishes to affirm 
it, it is better to do so without giving a reason than it is to pre- 
sent such arguments as the above. 

25. Space as Infinitely Divisible. — For more than two thou- 
sand years men have been aware that certain very grave diffi- 
culties seem to attach to the idea of motion, when we once 
admit that space is infinitely divisible. To maintain that we can 
divide any portion of space up into ultimate elements which are 
not themselves spaces, and which have no extension, seems re- 
pugnant to the idea we all have of space. And if we refuse to 
admit this possibility there seems to be nothing left to us but 
to hold that every space, however small, may theoretically be 
divided up into smaller spaces, and that there is no limit what- 
ever to the possible subdivision of spaces. Nevertheless, if 
we take this most natural position, we appear to find ourselves 
plunged into the most hopeless of labyrinths, every turn of which 
brings us face to face with a flat self-contradiction. 

To bring the difficulties referred to clearly before our minds, 
let us suppose a point to move uniformly over a line an inch 
long, and to accomphsh its journey in a second. At first glance, 
there appears to be nothing abnormal about this proceeding. 
But if we admit that this hne is infinitely divisible, and reflect 
upon this property of the line, the ground seems to sink from 
beneath our feet at once. 

For it is possible to argue that, under the conditions given, 



y8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

the point must move over, one half of the line in half a second ; 
over one half of the remainder, or one fourth of the line, in one 
fourth of a second; over one eighth of the line, in one eighth 
of a second, etc. Thus the portions of line moved over succes- 
sively by the point may be represented by the descending series : 
1 1 1 _i_ n 

Now, it is quite true that the motion of the point can be de- 
scribed in a number of different ways; but the important thing 
to remark here is that, if the motion really is uniform, and if 
the line really is infinitely divisible, this series must, as satis- 
factorily as any other, describe the motion of the point. And 
it would be absurd to maintain that a part of the series can de- 
scribe the whole motion. We cannot say, for example, that, 
when the point has moved over one half, one fourth, and one 
eighth of the line, it has completed its motion. If even a single 
member of the series is left out, the whole line has not been 
passed over; and this is equally true whether the omitted 
member represent a large bit of line or a small one. 

The whole series, then, represents the whole line, as definite 
parts of the series represent definite parts of the line. The 
Hne can only be completed when the series is completed. But 
when and how can this series be completed? In general, a 
series is completed when we reach the final term, but here 
there appears to be no final term. We cannot make zero the 
final term, for it does not belong to the series at all. It does 
not obey the law of the series, for it is not one half as large as 
the term preceding it — what space is so small that dividing 
it by 2 gives us o? On the other hand, some term just before 
zero cannot be the final term; for if it really represents a little 
bit of the Hne, however small, it must, by hypothesis, be made up 
of lesser bits, and a smaller term must be conceivable. There 
can, then, be no last term to the series; i.e. what the point is 
doing at the very last is absolutely indescribable; it is incon- 
ceivable that there should be a very last. 



Of space 79 

It was pointed out many centuries ago that it is equally in- 
conceivable that there should be a very 'first. How can a point 
even begin to move along an infinitely divisible hne? Must 
it not, before it can move over any distance, however short, 
first move over half that distance? And before it can move 
over that half, must it not move over the half of that? Can it 
find something to move over that has no halves? And if not, 
how shall it even start to move? To move at all, it must begin 
somewhere; it cannot begin with what has no halves, for then 
it is not moving over any part of the line, as all parts have halves ; 
and it cannot begin with what has halves, for that is not the 
beginning. What does the -point do -first ? that is the question. 
Those who tell us about points and lines usually leave us to call 
upon gentle echo for an answer. 

The perplexities of this moving point seem to grow worse 
and worse the longer one reflects upon them. They do not 
harass it merely at the beginning and at the end of its journey. 
This is admirably brought out by Professor W. K. Clifford 
(1845-1879), an excellent mathematician, who never had the 
faintest intention of denying the possibility of motion, and who 
did not desire to magnify the perplexities in the path of a mov- 
ing point. He writes : — 

"When a point moves along a line, we know that between 
any two positions of it there is an infinite number ... of in- 
termediate positions. That is because the motion is continuous. 
Each of those positions is where the point was at some instant 
or other. Between the two end positions on the line, the point 
where the motion began and the point where it stopped, there 
is no point of the line which does not belong to that series. We 
have thus an infinite series of successive positions of a con- 
tinuously moving point, and in that series are included all the 
points of a certain piece of line-room." ^ 

Thus, we are told that, when a point moves along a line, 

' "Seeing and Thinking," p. 149. 



8o A7i Introduction to Philosophy 

between any two positions of it there is an infinite number of 
intermediate positions. Clifford does not play with the word 
" infinite" ; he takes it seriously and tells us that it means without 
any end: ^''Infinite; it is a dreadful word, I know, until you 
find out that you are familiar with the thing which it expresses. 
In this place it means that between any two positions there is 
some intermediate position; between that and either of the others, 
again, there is some other intermediate; and so on without any 
end. Infinite means without any end." 

But really, if the case is as stated, the point in question must 
be at a desperate pass. I beg the reader to consider the follow- 
ing, and ask himself whether he would like to change places 
with it : — 

(i) If the series of positions is really endless, the point must 
complete one by one the members of an endless series, and reach 
a nonexistent final term, for a really endless series cannot have a 
final term. 

(2) The series of positions is supposed to be "an infinite 
series of successive positions." The moving point must take 
them one after another. But how can it ? Between any two 
positions 0} the point there is an infinite number of intermediate 
positions. That is to say, no two of these successive positions 
must be regarded as next to each other; every position is sepa- 
rated from every other by an infinite number of intermediate 
ones. How, then, shall the point move? It cannot possibly 
move from one position to the next, for there is no next. Shall 
it move first to some position that is not the next ? Or shall it 
in despair refuse to move at all ? 

Evidently there is either something wrong with this doctrine 
of the infinite divisibility of space, or there is something wrong 
with our understanding of it, if such absurdities as these refuse 
to be cleared away. Let us see where the trouble lies. 

26. What is Real Space? — It is plain that men are willing 
to make a number of statements about space, the ground for 



Of space 8 1 

making which is not at once apparent. It is a bold man who 
will undertake to say that the universe of matter is infinite in 
extent. We feel that we have the right to ask him how he 
knows that it is. But most men are ready enough to affirm 
that space is and must be infinite. How do they know that it 
is? They certainly do not directly perceive all space, and such 
arguments as the one offered by Hamilton and Spencer are 
easily seen to be poor proofs. 

Men are equally ready to affirm that space is infinitely divisible. 
Has any man ever looked upon a line and perceived directly 
that it has an infinite number of parts? Did any one ever suc- 
ceed in dividing a space up infinitely? When we try to make 
clear to ourselves how a point moves along an infinitely divisible 
line, do we not seem to land in sheer absurdities? On what sort 
of evidence does a man base his statements regarding space? 
They are certainly very bold statements. 

A careful reflection reveals the fact that men do not speak 
as they do about space for no reason at all. When they are 
properly understood, their statements can be seen to be justified, 
and it can be seen also that the difficulties which we have been 
considering can be avoided. The subject is a deep one, and it 
can scarcely be discussed exhaustively in an introductory 
volume of this sort, but one can, at least, indicate the direction 
in which it seems most reasonable to look for an answer to the 
questions which have been raised. How do we come to a knowl- 
edge of space, and what do we mean by space? This is the 
problem to solve; and if we can solve this, we have the key 
which will unlock many doors. 

Now, we saw in the last chapter that we have reason to be- 
lieve that we know what the real external world is. It is a 
world of things which we perceive, or can perceive, or, not 
arbitrarily but as a result of careful observation and deductions 
therefrom, conceive as though we did perceive it — a world, 
say, of atoms and molecules. It is not an Unknowable behind 



82 An Introduction to Philosophy 

or beyond everything that we perceive, or can perceive, or con- 
ceive in the manner stated. 

And the space with which we are concerned is real space, 
the space in which real things exist and move about, the real 
things which we can directly know or of which we can definitely 
know something. In some sense it must be given in our experi- 
ence, if the things which are in it, and are known to be in it, 
are given in our experience. How must we think of this real 
space? 

Suppose we look at a tree at a distance. We are conscious 
of a certain complex of color. We can distinguish the kind of 
color; in this case, we call it blue. But the quality of the 
color is not the only thing that we can distinguish in the ex- 
perience. In two experiences of color the quality may be the 
same, and yet the experiences may be different from each other. 
In the one case we may have more of the same color — we may, 
so to speak, be conscious of a larger patch; but even if there is 
not actually more of it, there may be such a difference that we 
can know from the visual experience alone that the touch ob- 
ject before us is, in the one case, of the one shape, and, in the 
other case, of another. Thus we may distinguish between the 
stu^ given in our experience and the arrangement of that stuff. 
This is the distinction which philosophers have marked as that 
between "matter" and "form." It is, of course, understood 
that both of these words, so used, have a special sense not to be 
confounded with their usual one. 

This distinction between "matter" and "form" obtains in 
all our experiences. I have spoken just above of the shape of 
the touch object for which our visual experiences stand as 
signs. What do we mean by its shape? To the plain man real 
things are the touch things of which he has experience, and 
these touch things are very clearly distinguishable from one 
another in shape, in size, in position, nor are the diff'erent parts 
of the things to be confounded with each other. Suppose that, 



Of space 83 

as we pass our hand over a table, all the sensations of touch 
and movement which we experience fused into an undistin- 
guishable mass. Would we have any notion of size or shape? 
It is because our experiences of touch and movement do not 
fuse, but remain distinguishable from each other, and we are 
conscious of them as arranged^ as constituting a system, that we 
can distinguish between this part of a thing and that, this thing 
and that. 

This arrangement, this order, of what is revealed by touch 
and movement, we may call the "form" of the touch world. 
Leaving out of consideration, for the present, time relations, 
we may say that the "form" of the touch world is the whole 
system of actual and possible relations of arrangement between 
the elements which make it up. It is because there is such a 
system of relations that we can speak of things as of this shape 
or of that, as great or small, as near or far, as here or there. 

Now, I ask, is there any reason to believe that, when the 
plain man speaks of space, the word means to him anything 
more than this system of actual and possible relations of arrange- 
ment among the touch things that constitute his real world ? 
He may talk sometimes as though space were some kind of a 
thing, but he does not really think of it as a thing. 

This is evident from the mere fact that he is so ready to make 
about it affirmations that he would not venture to make about 
things. It does not strike him as inconceivable that a given 
material object should be annihilated; it does strike him as 
inconceivable that a portion of space should be blotted out of 
existence. Why this difference? Is it not explained when we 
recognize that space is but a name for all the actual and possible 
relations of arrangement in which things in the touch world 
may stand ? We cannot drop out some of these relations and 
yet keep space, i.e. the system of relations which we had before. 
That this is what space means, the plain man may not recognize 
expHcitly, but he certainly seems to recognize it imphcitly in 



84 An Introduction to Philosophy 

what he says about space. Men are rarely inclined to admit 
that space is a thing of any kind, nor are they much more in- 
clined to regard it as a quahty of a thing. Of what could it be 
the quality? 

And if space really were a thing of any sort, would it not be 
the height of presumption for a man, in the absence of any 
direct evidence from observation, to say how much there is of 
it — to declare it infinite? Men do not hesitate to say that 
space must be infinite. But when we realize that we do not 
mean by space merely the actual relations which exist between 
the touch things that make up the world, but also the possible 
relations, i.e. that we mean the whole plan of the world system, 
we can see that it is not unreasonable to speak of space as infinite. 

The material universe may, for aught we know, be limited 
in extent. The actual space relations in which things stand to 
each other may not be limitless. But these actual space rela- 
tions taken alone do not constitute space. Men have often 
asked themselves whether they should conceive of the universe 
as limited and surrounded by void space. It is not nonsense 
to speak of such a state of things. It would, indeed, appear 
to be nonsense to say that, if the universe is limited, it does not 
lie in void space. What can we mean by void space but the 
system of possible relations in which things, if they exist, must 
stand? To say that, beyond a certain point, no further rela- 
tions are possible, seems absurd. 

Hence, when a man has come to understand what we have 
a right to mean by space, it does not imply a boundless conceit 
on his part to hazard the statement that space is infinite. When 
he has said this, he has said very little. What shall we say to 
the statement that space is infinitely divisible? 

To understand the significance of this statement we must 
come back to the distinction between appearances and the real 
things for which they stand as signs, the distinction discussed 
at length in the last chapter. 



Of space 85 

When I see a tree from a distance, the visual experience which 
I have is, as we have seen, not an indivisible unit, but is a 
complex experience; it has parts, and these parts are related 
to each other; in other words, it has both "matter" and "form." 
It is, however, one thing to say that this experience has parts, 
and it is another to say that it has an infinite number of parts. 
No man is conscious of perceiving an infinite number of parts 
in the patch of color which represents to him a tree at a dis- 
tance; to say that it is constituted of such strikes us in our 
moments of sober reflection as a monstrous statement. 

Now, this visual experience is to us the sign of the reality, 
the real tree ; it is not taken as the tree itself. When we speak 
of the size, the shape, the number of parts, of the tree, we do 
not have in mind the size, the shape, the number of parts, of 
just this experience. We pass from the sign to the thing sig- 
nified, and we may lay our hand upon this thing, thus gaining 
a direct experience of the size and shape of the touch object. 

We must recognize, however, that just as no man is conscious 
of an infinite number of parts in what he sees, so no man is 
conscious of an infinite number of parts in what he touches. He 
who tells me that, when I pass my finger along my paper cutter, 
what I ■perceive has an infinite number of parts, tells me what 
seems palpably untrue. When an object is very small, I can 
see it, and I cannot see that it is composed of parts; similarly, 
when an object is very small, I can feel it with my finger, but I 
cannot distinguish its parts by the sense of touch. There seem 
to be limits beyond which I cannot go in either case. 

Nevertheless, men often speak of thousandths of an inch, or of 
milHonths of an inch, or of distances even shorter. Have such 
fractions of the magnitudes that we do know and can perceive 
any real existence? The touch world of real things as it is 
revealed in our experience does not appear to be divisible into 
such; it does not appear to be divisible even so far, and much 
less does it appear to be infinitely divisible. 



86 An Introduction to Philosophy 

But have we not seen that the touch world given in our ex- 
perience must be taken by the thoughtful man as itself the sign 
or appearance of a reahty more ultimate? The speck which 
appears to the naked eye to have no parts is seen under the 
microscope to have parts ; that is to say, an experience apparently 
not extended has become the sign of something that is seen to 
have part out of part. We have as yet invented no instrument 
that will make directly perceptible to the finger tip an atom of 
hydrogen or of oxygen, but the man of science conceives of 
these little things as though they could be perceived. They and 
the space in which ihey move — the system of actual and pos- 
sible relations between them — seem to be related to the world 
revealed in touch very much as the space revealed in the field 
of the microscope is related to the space of the speck looked at 
with the naked eye. 

Thus, when the thoughtful man speaks of real space, he can- 
not mean by the word only the actual and possible relations of 
arrangement among the things and the parts of things directly 
revealed to his sense of touch. He may speak of real things too 
small to be thus perceived, and of their motion as through 
spaces too small to be perceptible at all. What limit shall he 
set to the possible subdivision of real things? Unless he can 
find an ultimate reality which cannot in its turn become the 
appearance or sign of a further reality, it seems absurd to speak 
of a limit at all. 

We may, then, say that real space is infinitely divisible. By 
this statement we should mean that certain experiences may be 
represented by others, and that we may carry on our division 
in the case of the latter, when a further subdivision of the former 
seems out of the question. But it should not mean that any 
single experience furnished us by any sense, or anything that 
we can represent in the imagination, is composed of an infinite 
number of parts. 

When we realize this, do we not free ourselves from the diffi- 



Of space 87 

culties which seemed to make the motion of a point over a line 
an impossible absurdity? The line as revealed in a single ex- 
perience either of sight or of touch is not composed of an in- 
finite number of parts. It is composed of points seen or touched 
— least experiences of sight or touch, minima sensihilia. These 
are next to each other, and the point, in moving, takes them one 
by one. 

But such a single experience is not what we call a line. It 
is but one experience of a line. Though the experience is not 
infinitely divisible, the line may be. This only means that the 
visual or tactual point of the single experience may stand for, 
may represent, what is not a mere point but has parts, and is, 
hence, divisible. Who can set a limit to such possible substitu- 
tions? in other words, who can set a limit to the divisibihty of 
a real line ? 

It is only when we confuse the single experience with the real 
line that we fall into absurdities. What the mathematician 
tells us about real points and real hnes has no bearing on the 
constitution of the single experience and its parts. Thus, 
when he tells us that between any two points on a line there are 
an infinite number of other points, he only means that we may 
expand the hne indefinitely by the system of substitutions de- 
scribed above. We do this for ourselves within limits every 
time that we approach from a distance a line drawn on a black- 
board. The mathematician has generalized our experience for 
us, and that is all he has done. We should try to get at his 
real meaning, and not quote him as supporting an absurdity. 



CHAPTER VII 
OF TIME 

27. Time as Necessary, Infinite, and Infinitely Divisible. — 

Of course, we all know something about time; we know it as 
past, present, and future; we know it as divisible into parts, 
all of which are successive; we know that whatever happens 
must happen in time. Those who have thought a good deal 
about the matter are apt to tell us that time is a necessity of 
thought, we cannot but think it; that time is and must be in- 
finite; and that it is infinitely divisible. 

These are the same statements that were made regarding 
space, and, as they have to be criticised in just the same way, 
it is not necessary to dwell upon them at great length. How- 
ever, we must not pass them over altogether. 

As to the statement that time is a necessary idea, we may 
freely admit that we cannot in thought annihilate time, or think 
it away. It does not seem to mean anything to attempt such a 
task. Whatever time may be, it does not appear to be a some- 
thing of such a nature that we can demolish it or clear it away 
from something else. But is it necessarily absurd to speak of 
a system of things — not, of course, a system of things in which 
there is change, succession, an earlier and a later, but still a 
system of things of some sort — in which there obtain no time 
relations? The problem is, to be sure, one of theoretical in- 
terest merely, for such a system of things is not the world we 
know. 

And as for the infinity of time, may we not ask on what ground 
any one ventures to assert that time is infinite? No man can say 
that infinite time is directly given in his experience. If one 



Of Time 89 

does not directly perceive it to be infinite, must one not seek for 
some proof of the fact ? The only proof which appears to be 
offered us is contained in the statement that we cannot conceive 
of a time before which there was no time, nor of a time after 
which there will be no time; a proof which is no proof, for 
written out at length it reads as follows: we cannot conceive of 
a time in the time before v\^hich there was no time, nor of a time 
in the time after which there will be no time. As well say : We 
cannot conceive of a number the number before which was 
no number, nor of a number the number after which will be 
no number. Whatever may be said for the conclusion arrived 
at, the argument is a very poor one. 

When we turn to the consideration of time as infinitely divis- 
ible, we seem to find ourselves confronted with the same 
difficulties which presented themselves when we thought of 
space as infinitely divisible. Certainly no man was immediately 
conscious of an infinite number of parts in the minute which 
just sHpped by. Shall he assert that it did, nevertheless, con- 
tain an infinite number of parts? Then how did it succeed in 
passing? how did it even hegin to pass away? It is infinitely 
divisible, that is, there is no end to the number of parts into 
which it may be divided; those parts and parts of parts are all 
successive, no two can pass at once, they must all do it in a 
certain order, one after the other. 

Thus, something must pass jirst. What can it be? If that 
something has parts, is divisible, the whole of it cannot pass 
first. It must itself pass bit by bit, as must the whole minute; 
and if it is infinitely divisible we have precisely the problem 
that we had at the outset. Whatever passes first cannot, then, 
have parts. 

Let us assume that it has no parts, and bid it Godspeed! 
Has the minute begun? Our minute is, by hypothesis, infinitely 
divisible ; it is composed of parts, and those parts of other parts, 
and so on without end. We cannot by subdivision come to any 



90 An Introduction to Philosophy 

part which is itself not composed of smaller parts. The part- 
less thing that passed, then, is no part of the minute. That is 
all still waiting at the gate, and no member of its troop can prove 
that it has a right to lead the rest. In the same outer darkness 
is waiting the point on the line that misbehaved itself in the 
last chapter. 

28. The Problem of Past, Present, and Future. — It seems bad 
enough to have on our hands a minute which must pass away 
in successive bits, and to discover that no bit of it can possibly 
pass first. But if we follow with approval the reflections of 
certain thinkers, we may find ourselves at such a pass that we 
would be glad to be able to prove that we may have on our 
hands a minute of any sort. Men sometimes are so bold as to 
maintain that they know time to be infinite; would it not be 
well for them to prove first that they can know time at all? 

The trouble is this; as was pointed out long ago by Saint 
Augustine (354-430) in his famous "Confessions," ^ the parts 
of time are successive, and of the three divisions, past, present, 
and future, only one can be regarded as existing: "Those two 
times, past and future, how can they be, when the past is not 
now, and the future is not yet ?" The present is, it seems, the 
only existent; how long is the present ? 

"Even a single hour passes in fleeting moments; as much of 
it as has taken flight is past, what remains is future. If we can 
comprehend any time that is divisible into no parts at all, or 
perhaps into the minutest parts of moments, this alone let us 
call present; yet this speeds so hurriedly from the future to the 
past that it does not endure even for a httle space. If it has 
duration, it is divided into a past and a future; but the present 
has no duration. 

"Where, then, is the time that we may call long? Is it future? 
We do not say of the future: it is long; for as yet there exists 
nothing to be long. We say: it will he long. But when? If 
* Book XI, Chapters 14 and 15. 



Of Time 91 

while yet future it will not be long, for nothing will yet exist 
to be long. And if it will be long, when, from a future as yet 
nonexistent, it has become a present, and has begun to be, 
that it may be something that is long, then present time cries 
out in the words of the preceding paragraph that it cannot be 
long." 

Augustine's way of presenting the difficulty is a quaint one, 
but the problem is as real at the beginning of the twentieth 
century as it was at the beginning of the fifth. Past time does 
not exist now, future time does not exist yet, and present time, 
it seems, has no duration. Can a man be said to be conscious 
of time as past, present, and future? Who can be conscious of 
the nonexistent? And the existent is not time^ it has no dura- 
tion, there is no before and after in a mere limiting point. 

Augustine's way out of the difficulty is the suggestion that, 
although we cannot, strictly speaking, measure time, we can 
measure memory and expectation. Before he begins to repeat 
a psalm, his expectation extends over the whole of it. After 
a little a part of it must be referred to expectation and a part 
of it to memory. Finally, the whole psalm is "extended along" 
the memory. We can measure this, at least. 

But how is the psalm in question "extended along" the 
memoiy or the expectation? Are the parts of it successive, or 
do they thus exist simultaneously? If everything in the memory 
image exists at once, if all belongs to the punctual present, to 
the mere point that divides past from future, how can a man get 
from it a consciousness of time, of a something whose parts can- 
not exist together but must follow each other? 

Augustine appears to overlook the fact that on his own hypoth- 
esis, the present, the only existent, the only thing a man can 
be conscious of, is an indivisible instant. In such there can 
be no change; the man who is shut up to such cannot be aware 
that the past is growing and the future diminishing. Any 
such change as this impHes at least two instants, an earher and 



92 An Introduction to Philosophy 

a later. He who has never experienced a change of any sort, 
who has never been conscious of the relation of earlier and 
later, of succession, cannot think of the varied content of memory 
as of that which has been present. It cannot mean to him what 
memory certainly means to us; he cannot be conscious of a 
past, a present, and a future. To extract the notion of time, 
of past, present, and future, from an experience which contains 
no element of succession, from an indivisible instant, is as hope- 
less a task as to extract a line from a mathematical point. 

It appears, then, that, if we are to be conscious of time at 
all, if we are to have the least conception of it, we must have 
some direct experience of change. We cannot really be shut up 
to that punctual present, that mere point or limit between past 
and future, that the present has been described as being. But 
does this not imply that we can be directly conscious of what is 
not present, that we can now perceive what does not now exist ? 
How is this possible? 

It is not easy for one whose reading has been somewhat 
limited in any given field to see the full significance of the prob- 
lems which present themselves in that field. Those who read 
much in the history of modern philosophy will see that this 
ancient difficulty touching our consciousness of time has given 
rise to some exceedingly curious speculations, and some strange 
conclusions touching the nature of the mind. 

Thus, it has been argued that, since the experience of each 
moment is something quite distinct from the experience of the 
next, a something that passes away to give place to its successor, 
we cannot explain the consciousness of time, of a whole in which 
successive moments are recognized as having their appropriate 
place, unless we assume a something that knows each moment 
and knits it, so to speak, to its successor. This something is 
the self or consciousness, which is independent of time, and 
does not exist in time, as do the various experiences that fill the 
successive moments. It is assumed to be timelessly present 



Of Time 93 

at all times, and thus to connect the nonexistent past with the 
existent present. 

I do not ask the reader to try to make clear to himself how 
anything can be timelessly present at all times, for I do not 
beheve that the words can be made to represent any clear thought 
whatever. Nor do I ask him to try to conceive how this time- 
less something can join past and present. I merely wish to 
point out that these modern speculations, which still influence 
the minds of many distinguished men, have their origin in a 
difficulty which suggested itself early in the history of reflective 
thought, and are by no means to be regarded as a gratuitous 
and useless exercise of the ingenuity. They are serious attempts 
to solve a real problem, though they may be unsuccessful ones, 
and they are worthy of attention even from those who incline 
to a different solution. 

29. What is Real Time? — From the thin air of such specu- 
lations as we have been discussing let us come back to the world 
of the plain man, the world in which we all habitually hve. It 
is from this that we must start out upon all our journeys, and 
it is good to come back to it from time to time to make sure 
of our bearings. 

We have seen (Chapter V) that we distinguish between the 
real and the apparent, and that we recognize as the real world 
the objects revealed to the sense of touch. These objects stand 
to each other in certain relations of arrangement; that is to say, 
they exist in space. And just as we may distinguish between 
the object as it appears and the object as it is, so we may dis- 
tinguish between apparent space and real space, i.e. between 
the relations of arrangement, actual and possible, which obtain 
among the parts of the object as it appears, and those which 
obtain among the parts of the object as it really is. 

But our experience does not present us only with objects in 
space relations; it presents us with a succession of changes in 
those objects. And if we will reason about those changes as 



94 ^f^ Introduction to Philosophy 

we have reasoned about space relations, many of our difficulties 
regarding the nature of time may, as it seems, be made to dis- 
appear. 

Thus we may recognize that we are directly conscious of dura- 
tion, of succession, and may yet hold that this crude and im- 
mediate experience of duration is not what we mean by real 
time. Every one distinguishes between apparent time and real 
time now and then. We all know that a sermon may seem long 
and not he long; that the ten years that we live over in a dream 
are not ten real years; that the swallowing of certain drugs 
may be followed by the illusion of the lapse of vast spaces of 
time, when really very little time has elapsed. What is this 
real time? 

It is nothing else than the order of the changes which take 
place or may take place in real things. In the last chapter I 
spoke of space as the "form" of the real world; it would be 
better to call it a "form" of the real world, and to give the same 
name also to time. 

It is very clear that, when we inquire concerning the real 
time of any occurrence, or ask how long a series of such lasted, 
we always look for our answer to something that has happened 
in the external world. The passage of a star over the meri- 
dian, the position of the sun above the horizon, the arc which 
the moon has described since our last observation, the move- 
ment of the hands of a clock, the amount of sand which has 
fallen in the hourglass, these things and such as these are the 
indicators of real time. There may be indicators of a different 
sort; we may decide that it is noon because we are hungry, or 
midnight because we are tired; we may argue that the preacher 
must have spoken more than an hour because he quite wore 
out the patience of the congregation. These are more or less 
uncertain signs of the lapse of time, but they cannot be regarded 
as experiences of the passing of time either apparent or real. 

Thus, we see that real space and real time are the plan of 



Of Time 95 

the world system. They are not things of any sort, and they 
should not be mistaken for things. They are not known in- 
dependently of things, though, when we have once had an 
experience of things and their changes, we can by abstraction 
from the things themselves fix our attention upon their arrange- 
ment and upon the order of their changes. We can divide and 
subdivide spaces and times without much reference to the 
things. But we should never forget that it would never have 
occurred to us to do this, indeed, that the whole procedure 
would be absolutely meaningless to us, were not a real world 
revealed in our experience as it is. 

He who has attained to this insight into the nature of time is 
in a position to offer what seem to be satisfactory solutions to 
the problems which have been brought forward above. 

(i) He can see, thus, why it is absurd to speak of any portion 
of time as becoming nonexistent. Time is nothing else than 
an order, a great system of relations. One cannot drop out cer- 
tain of these and leave the rest unchanged, for the latter imply 
the former. Day-after-to-morrow would not be day-after-to- 
morrow, if to-morrow did not lie between it and to-day. To 
speak of dropping out to-morrow and leaving it the time it was 
conceived to be is mere nonsense. 

(2) He can see why it does not indicate a measureless conceit 
for a man to be willing to say that time is infinite. One who 
says this need not be supposed to be acquainted with the whole 
past and future history of the real world, of which time is an 
aspect. We constantly abstract from things, and consider only 
the order of their changes, and in this order itself there is no 
reason why one should set a limit at some point; indeed, to set 
such a limit seems a gratuitous absurdity. He who says that 
time is infinite does not say much; he is not affirming the exist- 
ence of some sort of a thing; he is merely affirming a theoretical 
possibihty, and is it not a theoretical possibility that there may 
be an endless succession of real changes in a real world ? 



96 An Introduction to Philosophy 

(3) It is evident, furthermore, that, when one has grasped 
firmly the significance of the distinction between apparent 
time and real time, one may with a clear conscience speak of 
time as infinitely divisible. Of course, the time directly given 
in any single experience, the minute or the second of which we 
are conscious as it passes, cannot be regarded as composed of 
an infinite number of parts. We are not directly conscious of 
these subdivisions, and it is a monstrous assumption to maintain 
that they must be present in the minute or second as perceived. 

But no such single experience of duration constitutes what 
we mean by real time. We have seen that real time is the time 
occupied by the changes in real things, and the question is, 
How far can one go in the subdivision of this time ? 

Now, the touch thing which usually is for us in common life 
the real thing is not the real thing for science; it is the appear- 
ance under which the real world of atoms and molecules re- 
veals itself. The atom is not directly perceivable, and we may 
assign to its motions a space so small that no one could possibly 
perceive it as space, as a something with part out of part, a 
something with a here and a there. But, as has been before 
pointed out (§ 26), this does not prevent us from believing the 
atom and the space in which it moves to be real, and we can 
represent them to ourselves as we can the things and the spaces 
with which we have to do in common life. 

It is with time just as it is with space. We can perceive an 
inch to have parts; we cannot perceive a thousandth of an inch 
to have parts, if we can perceive it at all; but we can represent it 
to ourselves as extended, that is, we can let an experience which 
is extended stand for it, and can dwell upon the parts of that. 
We can perceive a second to have duration; we cannot perceive 
a thousandth of a second to have duration ; but we can conceive 
it as having duration, i.e. we can let some experience of dura- 
tion stand for it and serve as its representative. 

It is, then, reasonable to speak of the space covered by the 



Of Time 97 

vibration of an atom, and it is equally reasonable to speak of 
the time taken up by its vibration. It is not necessary to be- 
lieve that the duration that we actually experience as a second 
must itself be capable of being divided up into the number of 
parts indicated by the denominator of the fraction that we use 
in indicating such a time, and that each of these parts must be 
perceived as duration. 

There is, then, a sense in which we may affirm that time is 
infinitely divisible. But we must remember that apparent time 
— the time presented in any single experience of duration — 
is never infinitely divisible; and that real time, in any save a 
relative sense of the word, is not a single experience of duration 
at all. It is a recognition of the fact that experiences of duration 
may be substituted for each other without assignable limit. 

(4) But what shall we say to the last problem — to the ques- 
tion how we can be conscious of time at all, when the parts of 
time are all successive? How can we even have a consciousness 
of "crude" time, of apparent time, of duration in any sense of 
the word, when duration must be made up of moments no two 
of which can exist together and no one of which alone can con- 
stitute time? The past is not now, the future is not yet, the 
present is a mere point, as we are told, and cannot have parts. 
If we are conscious of time as past, present, and future, must 
we not be conscious of a series as a series when every member 
of it save one is nonexistent ? Can a man be conscious of the 
nonexistent ? 

The difficulty does seem a serious one, and yet I venture to 
affirm that, if we examine it carefully, we shall see that it is a 
difficulty of our own devising. The argumicnt quietly makes 
an assumption — and makes it gratuitously — with which any 
consciousness of duration is incompatible, and then asks us 
how there can be such a thing as a consciousness of duration. 

The assumption is that we can he conscious only of the existent, 
and this, written out a Httle more at length, reads as follows: 

H 



98 An IntrodMctio7i to Philosophy 

we can he conscious only of the now existent, or, in other words, 
of the present. Of course, this determines from the outset 
that we cannot be conscious of the past and the future, of 
duration. 

The past and the future are, to be sure, nonexistent from the 
point of view of the present; but it should be remarked as well 
that the present is nonexistent from the point of view of the 
past or the future. If we are talking of time at all we are talk- 
ing of that no two parts of which are simultaneous; it would 
be absurd to speak of a past that existed simultaneously with 
the present, just as it would be absurd to speak of a present 
existing simultaneously with the past. But we should not deny 
to past, present, and future, respectively, their appropriate 
existence; nor is it by any means self-evident that there cannot 
be a consciousness of past, present, and future as such. 

We fall in with the assumption, it seems, because we know 
very well that we are not directly conscious of a remote past 
and a remote future. We represent these to ourselves by means 
of some proxy — we have present memories of times long past 
and present anticipations of what will be in the time to come. 
Moreover, we use the word "present" very loosely; we say the 
present year, the present day, the present hour, the present 
minute, or the present second. When we use the word thus 
loosely, there seems no reason for believing that there should be 
such a thing as a direct consciousness that extends beyond the 
present. It appears reasonable to say : No one can be conscious 
save of the present. 

It should be remembered, however, that the generous present 
of common discourse is by no means identical with the ideal 
point between past and future dealt with in the argument under 
discussion. We all say: I now see that the cloud is moving; 
I now see that the snow is falling. But there can be no moving, 
no falling, no change, in the timeless "now" with which we 
have been concerned. Is there any evidence whatever that we 



Of Time 99 

are shut up, for all our immediate knowledge, to such a "now"? 
There is none whatever. 

The fact is that this timeless "now" is a product of reflective 
thought and not a something of which we are directly conscious. 
It is an ideal point in the real time of which this chapter has 
treated, the time that is in a certain sense infinitely divisible. 
It is first cousin to the ideal mathematical point, the mere 
Hmit between two lines, a something not perceptible to any sense. 
We have a tendency to carry over to it what we recognize to be 
true of the very different present of common discourse, a present 
which we distinguish from past and future in a somewhat 
loose way, but a present in which there certainly is the conscious- 
ness of change, of duration. And when we do this, we dig for 
ourselves a pit into which we proceed to fall. 

We may, then, conclude that we are directly conscious of more 

than the present, in the sense in which Augustine used the word. 

We are conscious of time^ of "crude" time, and from this we can 

pass to a knowledge of real time, and can determine its parts 

with precision. 

^ tOFC. 



III. PROBLEMS TOUCHING THE MIND 

CHAPTER VIII 
WHAT IS THE MIND? 

30. Primitive Notions of Mind. — The soul or mind, that 
something to which we refer sensations and ideas of all sorts, 
is an object that men do not seem to know very clearly and 
definitely, though they feel so sure of its existence that they 
regard it as the height of folly to call it in question. That he 
has a mind, no man doubts; what his mind is, he may be quite 
unable to say. 

We have seen (§ 7) that children, when quite young, can hardly 
be said to recognize that they have minds at all. This does not 
mean that what is mental is not given in their experience. They 
know that they must open their eyes to see things, and must 
lay their hands upon them to feel them; they have had pains 
and pleasures, memories and fancies. In short, they have 
within their reach all the materials needed in framing a concep- 
tion of the mind, and in drawing clearly the distinction between 
their minds and external things. Nevertheless, they are in- 
capable of using these materials; their attention is engrossed 
with what is physical, — with their own bodies and the bodies of 
others, with the things that they can eat, with the toys with 
which they can play, and the Hke. It is only later that there 
emerges even a tolerably clear conception of a self or mind 
different from the physical and contrasted with it. 

Primitive man is almost as material in his thinking as is the 
young child. Of this we have traces in many of the words 



What is the Mind? loi 

which have come to be applied to the mind. Our word " spirit " 
is from the Latin spiritus, originally a breeze. The Latin word 
for the soul, the word used by the great philosophers all through 
the Middle Ages, anima (Greek, av€fjio<i), has the same signifi- 
cance. In the Greek New Testament, the word used for spirit 
(TTvevfxa) carries a similar suggestion. When we are told in the 
Book of Genesis that " man became a living soul," we may read 
the word literally " a breath." 

What more natural than that the man who is just awakening 
to a consciousness of that elusive entity the mind should con- 
fuse it with that breath which is the most striking outward 
and visible sign that distinguishes a living man from a dead 
one? 

That those who first tried to give some scientific account of 
the soul or mind conceived it as a material thing, and that it 
was sufficiently common to identify it with the breath, we know 
from direct evidence. A glance at the Greek philosophy, to 
which we owe so much that is of value in our intellectual life, 
is suf&cient to disclose how difficult it was for thinking men 
to attain to a higher conception. 

Thus, Anaximenes of Miletus, who lived in the sixth century 
before Christ, says that " our soul, which is air, rules us." A 
little later, HeracHtus, a man much admired for the depth of 
his reflections, maintains that the soul is a fiery vapor, evidently 
identifying it with the warm breath of the Hving creature. In 
the fifth century, B.C., Anaxagoras, who accounts for the order- 
ing of the elements into a system of things by referring to the 
activity of Mind or Reason, calls mind " the finest of things," 
and it seems clear that he did not conceive of it as very different 
in nature from the other elements which enter into the con- 
stitution of the world. 

Democritus of Abdera (between 460 and 360 B.C.), that 
great investigator of nature and brilliant writer, developed a 
materialistic doctrine that admits the existence of nothing save 



I02 An Introduction to Philosophy 

atoms and empty space. He conceived the soul to consist of 
fine, smooth, round atoms, which are also atoms of fire. These 
atoms are distributed through the whole body, but function 
differently in different places — in the brain they give us thought, 
in the heart, anger, and in the liver, desire. Life lasts just so 
long as we breathe in and breathe out such atoms. 

The doctrine of Democritus was taken up by Epicurus, who 
founded his school three hundred years before Christ — a school 
which lived and prospered for a very long time. Those who 
are interested in seeing how a materialistic psychology can be 
carried out in detail by an ingenious mind should read the curious 
account of the mind presented in his great poem, " On Nature," 
by the Roman poet Lucretius, an ardent Epicurean, who wrote 
in the first century B.C. 

The school which we commonly think of contrasting with 
the Epicurean, and one which was founded at about the same 
time, is that of the Stoics. Certainly the Stoics differed in 
many things from the Epicureans; their view of the world, and 
of the life of man, was a much nobler one ; but they were uncom- 
promising materialists, nevertheless, and identified the soul 
with the warm breath that animates man. 

31. The Mind as Immaterial. — It is scarcely too much to 
say that the Greek philosophy as a whole impresses the modem 
mind as representing the thought of a people to whom it was 
not unnatural to think of the mind as being a breath, a fire, 
a collection of atoms, a something material. To be sure, we 
cannot accuse those twin stars that must ever remain the glory 
of literature and science, Plato and Aristotle, of being mate- 
rialists. Plato (427-347, B.C.) distributes, it is true, the three- 
fold soul, which he allows man, in various parts of the human 
body, in a way that at least suggests the Democritean distribu- 
tion of mind-atoms. The lowest soul is confined beneath the 
diaphragm; the one next in rank has its seat in the chest; and 
the highest, the rational soul, is enthroned in the head. How- 



What is the Mind? 103 

ever, he has said quite enough about this last to indicate clearly 
that he conceived it to be free from all taint of materiality. 

As for Aristotle (384-322, B.C.), who also distinguished be- 
tween the lower psychical functions and the higher, we find him 
sometimes speaking of soul and body in such a way as to lead 
men to ask themselves whether he is really speaking of two things 
at all; but when he specifically treats of the nous or reason, 
he insists upon its complete detachment from everything mate- 
rial. Man's reason is not subjected to the fate of the lower 
psychical functions, which, as the " form " of the body, perish 
with the body; it enters from without, and it endures after the 
body has passed away. It is interesting to note, however, an 
occasional lapse even in Aristotle. When he comes to speak 
of the relation to the world of the Divine Mind, the First Cause 
of Motion, which he conceives as pure Reason, he represents it 
as touching the world, although it remains itself untouched. 
We seem to find here just a flavor — an inconsistent one — 
of the material. 

Such reflections as those of Plato and Aristotle bore fruit in 
later ages. When we come down to Plotinus the Neo-Platonist 
(204-269, A.D.),we have left the conception of the soul as a warm 
breath, or as composed of fine round atoms, far behind. It 
has become curiously abstract and incomprehensible. It is 
described as an immaterial substance. This substance is, in 
a sense, in the body, or, at least, it is present to the body. But 
it is not in the body as material things are in this place or in 
that. It is as a whole in the whole body, and it is as a whole in 
every part 0} the body. Thus the soul may be regarded as divis- 
ible, since it is distributed throughout the body; but it must also 
be regarded as indivisible, since it is wholly in every part. 

Let the man to whom such sentences as these mean anything 
rejoice in the meaning that he is able to read into them ! If he 
can go as far as Plotinus, perhaps he can go as far as Cassio- 
dorus (477-570, A.D.), and maintain that the soul is not merely 



I04 An Introduction to Philosophy 

as a whole in every part of the body, but is wholly in each of its 
own parts. 

Upon reading such statements one's first impulse is to ex- 
claim: How is it possible that men of sense should be led to 
speak in this irresponsible way? and when they do speak thus, 
is it conceivable that other men should seriously occupy them- 
selves with what they say? 

But if one has the historic sense, and knows something of the 
setting in which such doctrines come to the birth, one cannot 
regard it as remarkable that men of sense should urge them. 
No one coins them independently out of his own brain; little 
by little men are impelled along the path that leads to such con- 
clusions. Plotinus was a careful student of the philosophers 
that preceded him. He saw that mind must be distinguished 
from matter, and he saw that what is given a location in space, 
in the usual sense of the words, is treated like a material thing. 
On the other hand, he had the common experience that we all 
have of a relation between mind and body. How do justice to 
this relation, and yet not materialize mind? 

What he tried to do is clear, and it seems equally clear that 
he had good reason for trying to do it. But it appears to us 
now that what he actually did was to make of the mind or soul 
a something very like an inconsistent bit of matter, that is some- 
how in space, and yet not exactly in space, a something that can 
be in two places at once, a logical monstrosity. That his doc- 
trine did not meet with instant rejection was due to the fact, 
already alluded to, that our experience of the mind is something 
rather dim and elusive. It is not easy for a man to say what it 
is, and, hence, it is not easy for a man to say what it is not. 

The doctrine of Plotinus passed over to Saint Augustine, and 
from him it passed to the philosophers of the Middle Ages. 
How extremely diflScult it has been for the world to get away 
from it at all, is made clearly evident in the writings of that 
remarkable man Descartes. 



What is the Mind? 105 

Descartes wrote in the seventeenth century. The long sleep 
of the Middle Ages was past, and the several sciences had sprung 
into a vigorous and independent Hfe. It was not enough for 
Descartes to describe the relation of mind and body in the loose 
terms that had prevailed up to his time. He had made a care- 
ful study of anatomy, and he realized that the brain is a central 
organ to which messages are carried by the nerves from all 
parts of the body. He knew that an injury to the nerve might 
prevent the receipt of a message, i.e. he knew that a conscious 
sensation did not come into being until something happened 
in the brain. 

Nor was he content merely to refer the mind to the brain in 
a general way. He found the " little pineal gland " in the 
midst of the brain to be in what he regarded as an admirable 
position to serve as the seat of the soul. To this convenient 
little central ofhce he relegated it; and he describes in a way 
that may to-day well provoke a smile the movements that the 
soul imparts to the pineal gland, making it incline itself in this 
direction and in that, and making it push the " animal spirits," 
the fluid contained in the cavities of the brain, towards various 
" pores." 

Thus he writes : ^ " Let us, then, conceive of the soul as having 
her chief seat in the little gland that is in the middle of the brain, 
whence she radiates to all the rest of the body by means of the 
spirits, the nerves, and even the blood, which, participating in 
the impressions of the spirits, can carry them through the ar- 
teries to all the members." And again: "Thus, when the soul 
wills to call anything to remembrance, this volition brings it 
about that the gland, inclining itself successively in different 
directions, pushes the spirits towards divers parts of the brain, 
until they find the part which has the traces that the object 
which one wishes to recollect has left there." 

We must admit that Descartes' scientific studies led him to 

^ " The Passions," Articles 34 and 42. 



io6 An Introduction to Philosophy 

make this mind that sits in the httle pineal gland something 
very material. It is spoken of as though it pushed the gland 
about; it is affected by the motions of the gland, as though it 
were a bit of matter. It seems to be a less inconsistent thing than 
the " all in the whole body " soul of Plotinus; but it appears 
to have purchased its comprehensibility at the expense of its 
immateriality. 

Shall we say that Descartes frankly repudiated the doctrine 
that had obtained for so many centuries? We cannot say that; 
he still held to it. But how could he? The reader has perhaps 
remarked above that he speaks of the soul as having her chie] 
seat in the pineal gland. It seems odd that he should do so, 
but he still held, even after he had come to his definite conclu- 
sions as to the soul's seat, to the ancient doctrine that the soul 
is united to all the parts of the body " conjointly." He could 
not wholly repudiate a venerable tradition. 

We have seen, thus, that men first conceived of the mind as 
material and later came to rebel against such a conception. 
But we have seen, also, that the attempt to conceive it as im- 
material was not wholly successful. It resulted in a something 
that we may describe as inconsistently material rather than as 
not material at all. 

32, Modem Common Sense Notions of the Mmd. — Under 
this heading I mean to sum up the opinions as to the nature of 
the mind usually held by the intelligent persons about us to-day 
who make no claim to be regarded as philosophers. Is it not 
true that a great many of them believe : — 
(i) That the mind is in the body? 

(2) That it acts and reacts with matter? 

(3) That it is a substance with attributes? 

(4) That it is nonextended and immaterial ? 

I must remark at the outset that this collection of opinions 
is by no means something gathered by the plain man from 
his own experience. These opinions are the echoes of old phi- 



What is the Mind? 107 

losophies. They are a heritage from the past, and have become 
the common property of all intelligent persons who are even 
moderately well-educated. Their sources have been indicated 
in the preceding sections; but most persons who cherish them 
have no idea of their origin. 

Men are apt to suppose that these opinions seem reasonable 
to them merely for the reason that they find in their own experi- 
ence evidence of their truth. But this is not so. 

Have we not seen above how long it took men to discover 
that they must not think of the mind as being a breath, or a 
flame, or a collection of material atoms? The men who erred 
in this way were abler than most of us can pretend to be, and 
they gave much thought to the matter. And when at last tt 
came to be realized that mind must not thus be conceived as 
material, those who endeavored to conceive it as something eJsc 
gave, after their best efforts, a very queer account of it indeed. 

Is it in the face of such facts reasonable to suppose that our 
friends and acquaintances, who strike us as having reflective 
powers in nowise remarkable, have independently arrived at 
the conception that the mind is a nonextended and immate- 
rial substance? Surely they have not thought all this out for 
themselves. They have taken up and appropriated uncon- 
sciously notions which were in the air, so to speak. They have 
inherited their doctrines, not created them. It is well to re- 
member this, for it may make us the more willing to take up and 
examine impartially what we have uncritically turned into 
articles of belief. 

The first two articles, namely, that the mind is in the body 
and that it acts upon, and is acted upon by, material things, 
I shall discuss at length in the next chapter. Here I pause only 
to point out that the plain man does not put the mind into the 
body quite unequivocally. I think it would surprise him to 
be told that a line might be drawn through two heads in such 
a way as to transfix two minds. And I remark, further, that 



io8 An Introductio7t to Philosophy 

he has no clear idea of what it means for mind to act upon body 
or body to act upon mind. How does an immaterial thing set 
a material thing in motion? Can it touch it? Can it push it? 
Then what does it do? 

But let us pass on to the last two articles of faith mentioned 
above. 

We all draw the distinction between substance and its attri- 
butes or qualities. The distinction was remarked and discussed 
many centuries ago, and much has been written upon it. I take 
up the ruler on my desk; it is recognized at once as a bit of wood. 
How? It has such and such qualities. My paper-knife is 
of silver. How do I know it? It has certain other qualities. 
I speak of my mind. How do I know that I have a mind? 
I have sensations and ideas. If I experienced no mental phe- 
nomena of any sort, evidence of the existence of a mind would 
be lacking. 

Now, whether I am concerned with the ruler, with the paper- 
knife, or with the mind, have I direct evidence of the existence 
of anything more than the whole group of qualities? Do I 
ever perceive the substance? 

In the older philosophy, the substance (substantia) was con- 
ceived to be a something not directly perceived, but only in- 
ferred to exist — a something underlying the qualities of things 
and, as it were, holding them together. It was believed in by 
philosophers who were quite ready to admit that they could not 
tell anything about it. For example, John Locke (1632-1704), 
the English philosopher, holds to it stoutly, and yet describes it as 
a mere " we know not what," whose function it is to hold to- 
gether the bundles of qualities that constitute the things we know. 

In the modern philosophy men still distinguish between sub- 
stance and qualities. It is a useful distinction, and we could 
scarcely get on without it. But an increasing number of thought- 
ful persons repudiate the old notion of substance altogether. 

We may, they say, understand by the word " substance " 



What is the Mind? 109 

the whole group of quaHties as a group — not merely the quali- 
ties that are revealed at a given time, but all those that we have 
reason to believe a fuller knowledge would reveal. In short, 
we may understand by it just what is left when the " we know 
not what " of the Lockian has been discarded. 

This notion of substance we may call the more modern one; 
yet we can hardly say that it is the notion of the plain man. He 
does not make very clear to himself just what is in his thought, 
but I think we do him no injustice in maintaining that he is 
something of a Lockian, even if he has never heard of Locke. 
The Lockian substance is, as the reader has seen, a sort of 
" unknowable." 

And now for the doctrine that the mind is nonextended and 
immaterial. With these affirmations we may heartily agree; 
but we must admit that the plain man enunciates them without 
having a very definite idea of what the mind is. 

He regards as in his mind all his sensations and ideas, all 
his perceptions and mental images of things. Now, suppose I 
close my eyes and picture to myself a barber's pole. Where 
is the image? We say, in the mind. Is it extended ? We feel 
impelled to answer. No. But it certainly seems to be extended ; 
the white and the red upon it appear undeniably side by side. 
May I assert that this mental image has no extension what- 
ever? Must I deny to it parts^ or assert that its parts are not 
side by side? 

It seems odd to maintain that a something as devoid of parts 
as is a mathematical point should yet appear to have parts and 
to be extended. On the other hand, if we allow the image to 
be extended, how can we refer it to a nonextended mind ? 

To such questions as these, I do not think that the plain man 
has an answer. That they can be answered, I shall try to show 
in the last section of this chapter. But one cannot answer them 
until one has attained to rather a clear conception of what is 
meant by the mind. 



no An Introduction to Philosophy 

And until one has attained to such a conception, the statement 
that the mind is immaterial must remain rather vague and 
indefinite. As we saw above, even the Plotinic soul was incon- 
sistently material rather than immaterial. It was not excluded 
from space ; it was referred to space in an absurd way. The mind, 
as common sense conceives it, is the successor of this Plotinic 
soul, and seems to keep a flavor of what is material after all. 
This will come out in the next chapter, where we shall discuss 
'dnd and body. 

33. The Psychologist and the Mind. — When we ask how the 
psychologist conceives of the mind, we must not forget that 
psychologists are many and that they differ more or less from 
each other in their opinions. When we say " the psychologist " 
believes this or that, we mean usually no more than that the 
opinion referred to is prevalent among men of that class, or that 
it is the opinion of those whom we regard as its more enhghtened 
members. 

Taking the words in this somewhat loose sense, I shall ask 
what the psychologist's opinion is touching the four points 
set forth in the preceding section. How far does he agree with 
the plain man? 

(i) There can be no doubt that he refers the mind to the body 
in some way, although he may shake his head over the use of 
the word "in." 

(2) As to whether the mind acts and reacts with matter, in any 
sense of the words analogous to that in which they are commonly 
used, there is a division in the camp. Some affirm such inter- 
action ; some deny it. The matter will be discussed in the next 
chapter. 

(3) The psychologist — the more modern one — inclines to 
repudiate any substance or substratum of the sort accepted in 
the Middle Ages and believed in by many men now. To him 
the mind is the whole complex of mental phenomena in their 
interrelations. In other words, the mind is not an unknown 



What is the Mind? iii 

and indescribable something that is merely inferred ; it is some- 
thing revealed in consciousness and open to observation. 

(4) The psychologist is certainly not inclined to regard the 
mind or any idea belonging to it as material or as extended. 
But he does recognize implicitly, if not explicitly, that ideas are 
composite. To him, as to the plain man, the image held in 
the memory or imagination seems to be extended, and he can 
distinguish its parts. He does not do much towards clearing 
away the difficulty alluded to at the close of the last section. 
It remains for the metaphysician to do what he can with it, and 
to him we must turn if we wish Hght upon this obscure subject. 

34. The Metaphysician and the Mind. — I have reserved for 
the next chapter the first two points mentioned as belonging 
to the plain man's doctrine of the mind. In what sense the 
mind may be said to be in the body, and how it may be conceived 
to be related to the body, are topics that deserve to be treated 
by themselves in a chapter on "Mind and Body." Here I shall 
consider what the metaphysician has to say about the mind as 
substance, and about the mind as nonextended and immaterial. 

It has been said that the Lockian substance is really an " un- 
knowable." No one pretends to have experience of it; it is 
revealed to no sense; it is, indeed, a name for a mere nothing, 
for when we abstract from a thing, in thought, every single 
quahty, we find that there is left to us nothing whatever. 

We cannot say that the substance, in this sense of the word, 
is the reality of which the quahties are appearances. In Chapter 
V we saw just what we may legitimately mean by reahties and 
appearances, and it was made clear that an unknowable of any 
sort cannot possibly be the reahty to which this or that appear- 
ance is referred. Appearances and realities are experiences 
which are observed to be related in certain ways. That which 
is not open to observation at all, that of which we have, and 
can have, no experience, we have no reason to call the reality 
of anything. We have, in truth, no reason to talk about it at 



112 An IntrodtLctio7i to Philosophy 

all, for we know nothing whatever about it; and. when we do 
talk about it, it is because we are laboring under a delusion. 

This is equally true whether we are concerned with the sub- 
stance of material things or with the substance of minds. An 
" unknowable " is an " unknowable " in any case, and we may 
simply discard it. We lose nothing by so doing, for one cannot 
lose what one has never had, and what, by hypothesis, one can 
never have. The loss of a mere word should occasion us no 
regret. 

Now, we have seen that we do not lose the world of real 
material things in rejecting the " Unknowable " (Chapter V). 
The things are complexes of qualities, of physical phenomena; 
and the more we know about these, the more do we know about 
real things. 

But we have also seen (Chapter IV) that physical phenomena 
are not the only phenomena of which we have experience. We 
are conscious of mental phenomena as well, of the phenomena 
of the subjective order, of sensations and ideas. Why not 
admit that these constitute the mind, as physical phenomena 
constitute the things which belong to the external world ? 

He who says this says no more than that the mind is 
known and is knowable. It is what it is perceived to be; and 
the more we know of mental phenomena, the more do we know 
of the mind. Shall we call the mind as thus known a substance ? 
That depends on the significance which we give to this word. 
It is better, perhaps, to avoid it, for it is fatally easy to sHp into 
the old use of the word, and then to say, as men have said, 
that we do not know the mind as it is, but only as it appears 
to us to be — that we do not know the reality, but only its ap- 
pearances. 

And if we keep clearly before us the view of the mind which 
I am advocating, we shall iind an easy way out of the difficulties 
that seem to confront us when we consider it as nonextended 
and immaterial. 



What is the Mmd? 113 

Certain complexes of mental phenomena — for example, the 
barber's pole above alluded to — certainly appear to be extended. 
Are they really extended ? If I imagine a tree a hundred feet 
high, is it really a hundred feet high ? Has it any real size at all ? 

Our problem melts away when we reahze what we mean by 
this " real size." In Chapter V, I have distinguished between 
apparent space and real space. Real space is, as was pointed 
out, the " plan " of the real physical world. To occupy any 
portion of real space, a thing must be a real external thing; 
that is, the experiences constituting it must belong to the ob- 
jective order, they must not be of the class called mental. We 
all recognize this, in a way. We know that a real material 
foot rule cannot be apphed to an imaginary tree. We say, 
How big did the tree seen in a dream seem; we do not say, 
How big was it really? If we did ask such a question, we 
should be puzzled to know where to look for an answer. 

And this for a very good reason. He who asks: How big 
was that imaginary tree really? asks, in effect: How much 
real space did the unreal tree fill ? The question is a foolish one. 
It assumes that phenomena not in the objective order are in the 
objective order. As well ask how a color smells or how a 
sound looks. When we are dealing with the material we are 
not dealing with the mental, and we must never forget this. 

The tree imagined or seen in a dream seems extended. Its 
extension is apparent extension, and this apparent extension has 
no place in the external world whatever. But we must not 
confound this apparent extension with a real mathematical 
point, and call the tree nonextended in this sense. If we do 
this we are still in the old error — we have not gotten away 
from real space, but have substituted position in that space for 
extension in that space. Nothing mental can have even a posi- 
tion in real space. To do that it would have to be a real thing 
in the sense indicated. 

Let us, then, agree with the plain man in affirming that the 



114 An Introduction to Philosophy 

mind is nonextended, but let us avoid misconception. The 
mind is constituted of experiences of the subjective order. 
None of these are in space — real space. But some of them 
have apparent extension, and we must not overlook all that 
this implies. 

Now for the mind as immaterial. We need not delay long 
over this point. If we mean by the mind the phenomena of 
the subjective order, and by what is material the phenomena 
of the objective order, surely we may and must say that the 
mind is immaterial. The two classes of phenomena separate 
themselves out at once. 



I 



CHAPTER IX 
MIND AND BODY 

35. Is the Mind in the Body? — There was a time, as we have 
seen in the last chapter (§ 30), when it did not seem at all out 
of the way to think of the mind as in the body, and very literally 
in the body. He who believes the mind to be a breath, or a 
something composed of material atoms, can conceive it as being 
in the body as unequivocally as chairs can be in a room. Breath 
can be inhaled and exhaled; atoms can be in the head, or in 
the chest, or the heart, or anywhere else in the animal economy. 
There is nothing dubious about this sense of the preposition 
" in." 

But we have also seen (§31) that, as soon as men began to 
realize that the mind is not material, the question of its presence 
in the body became a serious problem. If I say that a chair 
is in a room, I say what is comprehensible to every one. It is 
assumed that it is in a particular place in the room and is not 
in some other place. If, however, I say that the chair is, as 
a whole, in every part of the room at once, I seem to talk non- 
sense. This is what Plotinus and those who came after him 
said about the mind. Are their statements any the less non- 
sensical because they are talking about minds? When one 
speaks about things mental, one must not take leave of good 
sense and utter unmeaning phrases. 

If minds are enough like material things to be in anything, 
they must be in things in some intelligible sense of the word. 
It will not do to say: I use the word " in," but I do not really 
mean in. If the meaning has disappeared, why continue to 
use the word ? It can only lead to mystification. 

"5 



ii6 A71 Introduction to Philosophy 

Descartes seemed to come back to something like an intel- 
ligible meaning when he put the mind in the pineal gland in 
the brain. Yet, as we have seen, he clung to the old conception. 
He could not go back to the frank materialization of mind. 

And the plain man to-day labors under the same difficulty. 
He puts the mind in the body, in the brain, but he does not put 
it there frankly and unequivocally. It is in the brain and 
yet not exactly in the brain. Let us see if this is not the 
case. 

If we ask him : Does the man who wags his head move his 
mind about? does he who mounts a step raise his mind some 
inches? does he who sits down on a chair lower his mind? I 
think we shall find that he hesitates in his answers. And if 
we go on to say: Could a line be so drawn as to pass through 
your image of me and my image of you, and to measure 
their distance from one another ? I think he will say, No. He 
does not regard minds and their ideas as existing in space in 
this fashion. 

Furthermore, it would not strike the plain man as absurd if 
we said to him : Were our senses far more acute than they are, 
it is conceivable that we should be able to perceive every atom 
in a given human body, and all its motions. But would he be 
willing to admit that an increase in the sharpness of sense would 
reveal to us directly the mind connected with such a body? It 
is not, then, in the body as the atoms are. It cannot be seen 
or touched under any conceivable circumstances. What can 
it mean, hence, to say that it is there ? Evidently, the word is 
used in a peculiar sense, and the plain man cannot help us to 
a clear understanding of it. 

His position becomes intelligible to us when we realize that 
he has inherited the doctrine that the mind is immaterial, and 
that he struggles, at the same time, with the tendency so natural 
to man to conceive it after the analogy of things material. He 
thinks of it as in the body, and, nevertheless, tries to demate- 



Mind and Body 117 

rialize this " in." His thought is sufficiently vague, and is 
inconsistent, as might be expected. 

If we will bear in mind what was said in the closing section 
of the last chapter, we can help him over his difficulty. That 
mind and body are related there can be no doubt. But should 
we use the word " in " to express this relation? 

The body is a certain group of phenomena in the objective 
order; that is, it is a part of the external world. The mind con- 
sists of experiences in the subjective order. We have seen that 
no mental phenomenon can occupy space — real space, the space 
of the external world — and that it cannot even have a posi- 
tion in space (§ 34). As mental, it is excluded from the objec- 
tive order altogether. The mind is not, then, strictly speaking, 
in the body, although it is related to it. It remains, of course, 
to ask ourselves how we ought to conceive the relation. This 
we shall do later in the present chapter. 

But, it may be said, it would sound odd to deny that the mind 
is in the body. Does not every one use the expression ? What 
can we substitute for it? I answer: If it is convenient to use 
the expression let us continue to do so. Men must talk so 
as to be understood. But let us not perpetuate error, and, as 
occasion demands it, let us make clear to ourselves and to others 
what we have a right to understand by this in when we use it. 

36. The Doctrine of the Interactionist. — There is no man 
who does not know that his mind is related to his body as it is 
not to other material things. We open our eyes, and we see 
things; we stretch out our hand, and we feel them; our body 
receives a blow, and we feel pain; we wish to move, and the 
muscles are set in motion. 

These things are matters of common experience. We all 
perceive, in other words, that there is an interaction, in some 
sense of the term, between mind and body. 

But it is important to realize that one may be quite well aware 
of all such facts, and yet may have very vague notions of what 



ii8 A7i Introduction to Philosophy 

one means by body and by mind, and may have no definite 
theory at all of the sort of relation that obtains between them. 
The philosopher tries to attain to a clearer conception of these 
things. His task, be it remembered, is to analyze and explain, 
not to deny, the experiences which are the common property 
of mankind. 

In the present day the two theories of the relation of mind 
and body that divide the field between them and stand opposed 
to each other are inter actionism and ■parallelism. I have used 
the word " interaction " a little above in a loose sense to indicate 
our common experience of the fact that we become conscious 
of certain changes brought about in our body, and that our 
purposes realize themselves in action. But every one who 
accepts this fact is not necessarily an interactionist. The latter 
is a man who holds a certain more or less definite theory as to 
what is implied by the fact. Let us take a look at his doctrine. 

Physical things interact. A billiard ball in motion strikes 
one which has been at rest; the former loses its motion, the 
latter begins to roll away. We explain the occurrence by a 
reference to the laws of mechanics; that is to say, we point out 
that it is merely an instance of the uniform behavior of matter 
in motion under such and such circumstances. We distinguish 
between the state of things at one instant and the state of things 
at the next, and we call the former cause and the latter 
efiect. 

It should be observed that both cause and effect here belong 
to the one order, the objective order. They have their place in 
the external world. Both the balls are material things; their 
motion, and the space in which they move, are aspects of the 
external world. 

If the balls did not exist in the same space, if the motion of 
the one could not be towards or away from the other, if contact 
were impossible, we would manifestly have no interaction iyi 
the sense o] the word employed above. As it is, the interaction 



Mind and Body 119 

of physical things is something that we can describe with a good 
deal of definiteness. Things interact in that they stand in cer- 
tain physical relations, and undergo changes of relations ac- 
cording to certain laws. 

Now, to one who conceives the mind in a grossly material 
way, the relation of mind and body can scarcely seem to be a 
peculiar problem, different from the problem of the relation of 
one physical thing to another. If my mind consists of atoms 
disseminated through my body, its presence in the body appears 
as unequivocal as the presence of a dinner in a man who has 
just risen from the table. Nor can the interaction of mind and 
matter present any unusual difficulties, for mind is matter. 
Atoms may be conceived to approach each other, to clash, to 
rearrange themselves. Interaction of mind and body is nothing 
else than an interaction of bodies. One is not forced to give 
a new meaning to the word. 

When, however, one begins to think of the mind as immate- 
rial, the case is very different. How shall we conceive an im- 
material thing to be related to a material one? 

Descartes placed the mind in the pineal gland, and in so far 
he seemed to make its relation to the gland similar to that be- 
tween two material things. When he tells us that the soul 
brings it about that the gland bends in different directions, we 
incline to view the occurrence as very natural — is not the soul 
in the gland ? 

But, on the other hand, Descartes also taught that the essence 
of mind is thought and the essence of body is extension. He 
made the two natures so different from each other that men 
began to ask themselves how the two things could interact at 
all. The mind wills, said one philosopher, but that volition 
does not set matter in motion ; when the mind wills, God brings 
about the appropriate change in material things. The mind 
perceives things, said another, but that is not because they 
affect it directly; it sees things in God. Ideas and things, said 



I20 An Introduction to Philosophy 

a third, constitute two independent series; no idea can cause 
a change in things, and no thing can cause a change in 
ideas. 

The interactionist is a man who refuses to take any such 
turn as these philosophers. His doctrine is much nearer to 
that of Descartes than it is to any of theirs. He uses the one 
word " interaction " to describe the relation between material 
things and also the relation between mind and body, nor does 
he dwell upon the difference between the two. He insists that 
mind and matter stand in the one causal nexus; that a change 
in the outside world may be the cause of a perception coming 
into being in a mind, and that a volition may be the cause of 
changes in matter. 

What shall we call the plain man? I think we may call him 
an interactionist in embryo. The stick in his hand knocks 
an apple off of the tree ; his hand seems to him to be set in motion 
because he wills it. The relation between his volition and the 
motion of his hand appears to him to be of much the same sort 
as that between the motion of the stick and the fall of the apple. 
In each case he thinks he has to do with the relation of cause and 
effect. 

The opponent of the interactionist insists, however, that the 
plain man is satisfied with this view of the matter only be- 
cause he has not completely stripped off the tendency to conceive 
the mind as a material thing. And he accuses the interaction- 
ist of having fallen a prey to the same weakness. 

Certainly, it is not difficult to show that the interactionists 
write as though the mind were material, and could be some- 
where in space. The late Dr. McCosh fairly represents the 
thought of many, and he was capable of expressing himself 
as follows:^ " It may be difficult to ascertain the exact point 
or surface at which the mind and body come together and 

^ " First and Fundamental Truths," Book I, Part II, Chapter II. New 
York, 1889. 



Mind and Body 121 

influence each other, in particular, how far into the body (Des- 
cartes without proof thought it to be in the pineal gland), but 
it is certain that when they do meet mind knows body as having 
its essential properties of extension and resisting energy." 

How can an immaterial thing be located at some point or 
surface within the body? How can a material thing and an 
immaterial thing " come together " at a point or surface? And 
if they cannot come together, what have we in mind when we 
say they interact? 

The parallelist, for it is he who opposes interactionism, in- 
sists that we must not forget that mental phenomena do not 
belong to the same order as physical phenomena. He points 
out that, when we make the word " interaction " cover the 
relations of mental phenomena to physical phenomena 
as well as the relations of the latter to each other, we are 
assimilating heedlessly facts of two different kinds and 
are obliterating an important distinction. He makes the 
same objection to calling the relations between mental 
phenomena and physical phenomena causal. If the relation 
of a volition to the movement of the arm is not the same 
as that of a physical cause to its physical effect, why, he 
argues, do you disguise the difference by calling them by the 
same name ? 

37. The Doctrine of the Parallelist. — Thus, the parallehst 
is a man who is so impressed by the gulf between physical facts 
and mental facts that he refuses to regard them as parts of the 
one order of causes and effects. You cannot, he claims, make 
a single chain out of links so diverse. 

Some part of a human body receives a blow; a message is 
carried along a sensory nerve and reaches the brain; from the 
brain a message is sent out along a motor nerve to a group of 
muscles; the muscles contract, and a limb is set in motion. 
The immediate effects of the blow, the ingoing message, the 
changes in the brain, the outgoing message, the contraction of 



122 An Introduction to Philosophy 

the muscles — all these are physical facts. One and all may 
be described as motions in matter. 

But the man who received the blow becomes conscious that 
he was struck, and both interactionist and parallelist regard him 
as becoming conscious of it when the incoming message reaches 
some part of the brain. What shall be done with this conscious- 
ness? The interactionist insists that it must be regarded as a 
link in the physical chain of causes and effects — he breaks the 
chain to insert it. The parallelist maintains that it is inconceiv- 
able that such an insertion should be made. He regards the 
physical series as complete in itself, and he places the con- 
sciousness, as it were, on a parallel line. 

It must not be supposed that he takes this figure literally. 
It is his effort to avoid materializing the mind that forces him 
to hold the position which he does. To put the mind in the 
brain is to make of it a material thing; to make it parallel to 
the brain, in the literal sense of the word, would be just as bad. 
All that we may understand him to mean is that mental phe- 
nomena and physical, although they are related, cannot be built 
into the one series of causes and effects. He is apt to speak of 
them as concomitant. 

We must not forget that neither parallelist nor interactionist 
ever dreams of repudiating our common experiences of the rela- 
tions of mental phenomena and physical. Neither one will, 
if he is a man of sense, abandon the usual ways of describing 
such experiences. Whatever his theory, he will still say: I 
am suffering because I struck my hand against that table; 
I sat down because I chose to do so. His doctrine is not sup- 
posed to deny the truth contained in such statements; it is 
supposed only to give a fuller understanding of it. Hence, 
we cannot condemn either doctrine simply by an uncritical 
appeal to such statements and to the experiences they represent. 
We must look much deeper. 

Now, what can the parallelist mean by referring sensations 



Mind and Body 123 

and ideas to the brain and yet denying that they are in the brain ? 
What is this reference? 

Let us come back to the experiences of the physical and the 
mental as they present themselves to the plain man. They 
have been discussed at length in Chapter IV. It was there 
pointed out that every one distinguishes without difficulty be- 
tween sensations and things, and that every one recognizes 
explicitly or implicitly that a sensation is an experience referred 
in a certain way to the body. 

When the eyes are open, we see; when the ears are open, 
we hear; when the hand is laid on things, we \eel. How do we 
know that we are experiencing sensations? The setting tells 
us that. The experience in question is given together with an 
experience of the body. This is concomitance 0} the mental 
and the physical as it appears in the experience of us all; and 
from such experiences as these the philosopher who speaks of 
the concomitance of physical and mental phenomena must 
draw the whole meaning of the word. 

Let us here sharpen a little the distinction between sensations 
and things. Standing at some distance from the tree, I see 
an apple fall to the ground. Were I only half as far away, my 
experience would not be exactly the same — I should have 
somewhat different sensations. As we have seen (§ 17), the 
apparent sizes of things vary as we move; and this means that 
the quantity of sensation, when I observe the apple from a nearer 
point, is greater. The man of science tells me that the image 
which the object looked at projects upon the retina of the eye 
grows larger as we approach objects. The thing, then, may 
remain unchanged; our sensations will vary according to the 
impression which is made upon our body. 

Again. When I have learned something of physics, I am 
ready to admit that, although light travels with almost incon- 
ceivable rapidity, still, its journey through space does take time. 
Hence the impression made upon my eye by the falling apple 



124 An Introduction to Philosophy 

is not simultaneous with the fall itself; and if I stand far away 
it is made a little later than when I am near. In the case in 
point the difference is so slight as to pass unnoticed, but there 
are cases in which it seems apparent even to the unlearned that 
sensations arise later than the occurrences of which we take 
them to be the report. 

Thus, I stand on a hill and watch a laborer striking with 
his sledge upon the distant railway. I hear the sound of the 
blow while I see his tool raised above his head. I account for 
this by saying that it has taken some time for the sound-waves 
to reach my ear, and I regard my sensation as arising only when 
this has been accomplished. 

But this conclusion is not judged sufficiently accurate by the 
man of science. The investigations of the physiologist and the 
psychologist have revealed that the brain holds a peculiar place 
in the economy of the body. If the nerve which connects the 
sense organ with the brain be severed, the sensation does not 
arise. Injuries to the brain affect the mental life as injuries to 
other parts of the body do not. Hence, it is concluded that, 
to get the real time of the emergence of a sensation, we must 
not inquire merely when an impression was made upon the organ 
of sense, but must determine when the message sent along the 
nerve has reached some part of the brain. The resulting brain 
change is regarded as the true concomitant of the sensation. 
If there is a brain change of a certain kind, there is the corre- 
sponding sensation. It need hardly be said that no one knows 
as yet much about the brain motions which are supposed to 
be concomitants of sensations, although a good deal is said 
about them. 

It is very important to remark that in all this no new mean- 
ing has been given to the word " concomitance." The plain 
man remarks that sensations and their changes must be referred 
to the body. With the body disposed in a certain way, he has 
sensations of a certain kind; with changes in the body, the 



Mind and Body 125 

sensations change. He does not perceive the sensations to be 
in the body. As I recede from a house I have a whole series 
of visual experiences differing from each other and ending in 
a faint speck which bears little resemblance to the experience 
with which I started. I have had, as we say, a series of sensa- 
tions, or groups of such. Did any single group, did the experi- 
ence which I had at any single moment, seem to me to be in 
my body? Surely not. Its relation to my body is other than 
that. 

And when the man of science, instead of referring sensations 
vaguely to the body, refers them to the brain, the reference is 
of precisely the same nature. From our common experience 
of the relation of the physical and the mental he starts out. He 
has no other ground on which to stand. He can only mark 
the reference with greater exactitude. 

I have been speaking of the relation of sensations to the brain. 
It is scarcely necessary for me to show that all other mental 
phenomena must be referred to the brain as well, and that the 
reference must be of the same nature. The considerations 
which lead us to refer ideas to the brain are set forth in our 
physiologies and psychologies. The effects of cerebral disease, 
injuries to the brain, etc., are too well known to need men- 
tion; and it is palpably as absurd to put ideas in the brain 
as it is to put sensations there. 

Now, the parallelist, if he be a wise man, will not attempt 
to explain the reference of mental phenomena to the brain — to 
explain the relation between mind and matter. The relation 
appears to be unique. Certainly it is not identical with the 
relation between two material things. We explain things, 
in the common acceptation of the word, when we show that 
a case under consideration is an exemplification of some general 
law — when we show, in other words, that it does not stand 
alone. But this does stand alone, and is admitted to stand 
3,lone. We admit as much when we say that the mind is 



126 An Introductio7t to Philosophy 

immaterial, and yet hold that it is related to the body. We 
cannot, then, ask for an explanation of the relation. 

But this does not mean that the reference of mental phe- 
nomena to the body is a meaningless expression. We can point 
to those experiences of concomitance that we all have, distin- 
guish them carefully from relations of another kind, and say: 
This is what the word means, whether it be used by the plain 
man or by the man of science. 

I have said above : "If there is a brain change of a certain 
kind, there is the corresponding sensation." Perhaps the 
reader will feel inclined to say here: If you can say as much 
as this, why can you not go a little farther and call the brain 
change the cause of the sensation? 

But he who speaks thus, forgets what has been said above 
about the uniqueness of the relation. In the objective order 
of our experiences, in the external world, we can distinguish 
between antecedents and consequents, between causes and their 
effects. The causes and their effects belong to the one order, 
they stand in the same series. The relation of the physical to 
the mental is, as we have seen, a different relation. Hence, 
the parallelist seems justified in objecting to the assimilation 
of the two. He prefers the word " concomitance," just because 
it marks the difference. He does not mean to indicate that the 
relation is any the less uniform or dependable when he denies 
that it is causal. 

38. In what Sense Mental Phenomena have a Time and 
Place. — We have seen in Chapters VI and VII what space 
and time — real space and time — are. They are the plan of 
the real external world and its changes; they are aspects of 
the objective order of experience. 

To this order no mental phenomenon can belong. It cannot, 
as we have seen (§ 35), occupy any portion of space or even have 
a location in space. It is equally true that no series of men- 
tal changes can occupy any portion of time, real time, or 



Mmd and Body 127 

even fill a single moment in the stream of time. There are 
many persons to whom this latter statement will seem difficult 
of acceptance; but the relation of mental phenomena to space 
and to time is of the same sort, and we can consider the two 
together. 

Psychologists speak unhesitatingly of the localization of sen- 
sations in the brain, and they talk as readily of the moment at 
which a sensation arises and of the duration of the sensation. 
What can they mean by such expressions? 

We have seen that sensations are not in the brain, and their 
localization means only the determination of their concomi- 
tant physical phenomena, of the corresponding brain-change. 
And it ought to be clear even from what has been said above 
that, in determining the moment at which a sensation arises, 
we are determining only the time of the concomitant brain 
process. Why do we say that a sensation arises later than the 
moment at which an impression is made upon the organ of sense 
and earlier than the resulting movement of some group of 
muscles? Because the change in the brain, to which we refer 
the sensation, occurs later than the one and earlier than the 
other. This has a place in real time, it belongs to that series 
of world changes whose succession constitutes real time. If we 
ask when anything happened, we always refer to this series of 
changes. We try to determine its place in the world order. 

Thus, we ask: When was Julius Caesar born? We are given 
a year and a day. How is the time which has elapsed since 
measured? By changes in the physical world, by revolutions 
of the earth about the sun. We ask: When did he conceive 
the plan of writing his Commentaries? If we get an answer at 
all, it must be an answer of the same kind — some point in 
the series of physical changes which occur in real time must 
be indicated. Where else should we look for an answer? In 
point of fact, we never do look elsewhere. 

Again. We have distinguished between apparent space and 



128 An Introduction to Philosophy 

real space (§ 34). We have seen that, when we deny that a 
mental image can occupy any portion of space, we need not 
think of it as losing its parts and shrivelling to a point. We 
may still attribute to it apparent space; may affirm that it 
seems extended. Let us mark the same distinction when we 
consider time. The psychologist speaks of the duration of a 
sensation. Has it real duration? It is not in time at all, and, 
of course, it cannot, strictly speaking, occupy a portion of time. 
But we can try to measure the duration of the physical con- 
comitant, and call this the real duration of the sensation. 

We all distinguish between the real time of mental phenomena, 
in the sense indicated just above, and the apparent time. We 
know very well that the one may give us no true measure of 
the other. A sermon seems long; was it really long? There 
is only one way of measuring its real length. We must refer 
to the clock, to the sun, to some change in the physical world. We 
seem to live years in a dream ; was the dream really a long one ? 
The real length can only be determined, if at all, by a physical 
reference. Those apparent years of the dream have no place 
in the real time which is measured by the clock. We do not 
have to cut it and insert them somewhere. They belong to 
a different order, and cannot be inserted any more than the 
thought of a patch can be inserted in a rent in a real coat. 

We see, thus, when we reflect upon the matter, that mental 
phenomena cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have a time and 
place. He who attributes these to them materializes them. 
But their physical concomitants have a time and place, and 
mental phenomena can be ordered by a reference to these. 
They can be assigned a time and place of existing in a special 
sense of the words not to be confounded with the sense in 
which we use them when we speak of the time and place of 
material things. This makes it possible to relate every mental 
phenomenon to the world system in a definite way, and to dis- 
tinguish it clearly from every other, however similar. 



Mind and Body 129 

We need not, when we come to understand this, change our 
usual modes of speech. We may still say: The pain I had two 
years ago is like the pain I have to-day; my sensation came 
into being at such a moment; my regret lasted two days. We 
speak that we may be understood; and such phrases express 
a truth, even if they are rather loose and inaccurate. But we 
must not be deceived by such phrases, and assume that they 
mean what they have no right to mean. 

39. Objections to Parallelism. — What objections can be 
brought against parallelism? It is sometimes objected by 
the interactionist that it abandons the plain man's notion of the 
mind as a substance with its attributes, and makes of it a mere 
collection of mental phenomena. It must be admitted that 
the parallelist usually holds a view which differs rather widely 
from that of the unlearned. 

But even supposing this objection well taken, it can no longer 
be regarded as an objection specifically to the doctrine of par- 
allehsm, for the view of the mind in question is becoming 
increasingly popular, and it is now held by influential interac- 
tionists as well as by parallelists. One may believe that the 
mind consists of ideas, and may still hold that ideas can cause 
motions in matter. 

There is, however, another objection that predisposes many 
thoughtful persons to reject parallelism uncompromisingly. 
It is this. If we admit that the chain of physical causes and 
effects, from a blow given to the body to the resulting muscular 
movements made in self-defense, is an unbroken one, what 
part can we assign to the mind in the whole transaction? Has 
it done anything? Is it not reduced to the position of a passive 
spectator? Must we not regard man as " a physical automaton 
with parallel psychical states " ? 

Such an account of man cannot fail to strike one as repug- 
nant; and yet it is the parallelist himself whom we must thank 
for introducing us to it. The account is not a caricature from 



130 An Introduction to Philosophy 

the pen of an opponent. " An automaton," writes Professor 
Clifford/ " is a thing that goes by itself when it is wound up, 
and we go by ourselves when we have had food. Excepting 
the fact that other men are conscious, there is no reason why 
we should not regard the human body as merely an exceedingly 
comphcated machine which is wound up by putting food into 
the mouth. But it is not merely a machine, because conscious- 
ness goes with it. The mind, then, is to be regarded as a stream 
of feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with, a 
certain part of the action of the body, that is to say, that par- 
ticular part of the action of the brain in which the cerebrum and 
the sensory tracts are excited." 

The saving statement that the body is not merely a machine, 
because consciousness goes with it, does not impress one as 
being sufficient to redeem the illustration. Who wants to be 
an automaton with an accompanying consciousness? Who 
cares to regard his mind as an " epiphenomenon " — a thing 
that exists, but whose existence or nonexistence makes no 
difference to the course of affairs? 

The plain man's objection to such an account of himself 
seems to be abundantly justified. As I have said earlier in 
this chapter, neither interactionist nor parallelist has the inten- 
tion of repudiating the experience of world and mind common 
to us all. We surely have evidence enough to prove that minds 
count for something. No house was ever built, no book was 
ever written, by a creature without a mind; and the better the 
house or book, the better the mind. That there is a fixed and 
absolutely dependable relation between the planning mind and 
the thing accompHshed, no man of any school has the right to 
deny. The only legitimate question is: What is the nature 
of the relation? Is it causal, or should it be conceived to be 
something else? 

The whole matter will be more fully discussed in Chapter XL 

1 "Lectures and Essays," Vol. II, p. 57. London, 1879. 



Mind and Body 131 

This chapter I shall close with a brief summary of the points 
which the reader will do well to bear in mind when he occupies 
himself with parallelism. 

(i) ParalleHsm is a protest against the interactionist's tendency 
to materialize the mind. 

(2) The name is a figurative expression, and must not be taken 
literally. The true relation between mental phenomena and 
physical is given in certain common experiences that have been 
indicated, and it is a unique relation. 

(3) It is a fixed and absolutely dependable relation. It is 
impossible that there should be a particular mental fact without 
its corresponding physical fact; and it is impossible that this 
physical fact should occur without its corresponding mental 
fact. 

(4) The parallelist objects to calling this relation causal, 
because this obscures the distinction between it and the relation 
between facts both of which are physical. He prefers the word 
" concomitance." 

(5) Such objections to paralleHsm as that cited above assume 
that the concomitance of which the parallelist speaks is analo- 
gous to physical concomitance. The chemist puts together 
a volume of hydrogen gas and a volume of chlorine gas, and the 
result is two volumes of hydrochloric acid gas. We regard it 
as essential to the result that there should be the two gases 
and that they should be brought together. But the fact that 
the chemist has red hair we rightly look upon as a concomitant 
phenomenon of no importance. The result would be the same 
if he had black hair or were bald. But this is not the concomi- 
tance that interests the parallelist. The two sorts of con- 
comitance are alike only in the one point. Some phenomenon 
is regarded as excluded from the series of causes and effects 
under discussion. On the other hand, the difference between 
the two is all-important; in the one case, the concomitant 
phenomenon is an accidental circumstance that might just 



132 An Introduction to Philosophy 

as well be absent; in the other, it is nothing of the sort; it 
cannot be absent — the mental fact must exist if the brain- 
change in question exists. 

It is quite possible that, on reading this list of points, one 
may be inclined to make two protests. 

First: Is a parallelism so carefully guarded as this properly 
called parallelism at all? To this I answer: The name matters 
little. I have used it because I have no better term. Certainly, 
it is not the parallelism which is sometimes brought forward, 
and which peeps out from the citation from Clifford. It is 
nothing more than an insistence upon the truth that we should 
not treat the mind as though it were a material thing. If any one 
wishes to take the doctrine and discard the name, I have no 
objection. As so guarded, the doctrine is, I think, true. 

Second: If it is desirable to avoid the word " cause," in speak- 
ing of the relation of the mental and the physical, on the ground 
that otherwise we give the word a double sense, why is it not 
desirable to avoid the word "concomitance "? Have we not 
seen that the word is ambiguous? I admit the inconsistency 
and plead in excuse only that I have chosen the lesser of two 
evils. It is fatally easy to slip into the error of thinking of the 
mind as though it were material and had a place in the 
physical world. In using the word " concomitance " I enter 
a protest against this. But I have, of course, no right to use 
it without showing just what kind of concomitance I mean. 



CHAPTER X 
HOW WE KNOW THERE ARE OTHER MINDS 

40. Is it Certain that we know It? — I suppose there is no 
man in his sober senses who seriously beheves that no other 
mind than his own exists. There is, to be sure, an imaginary 
being more or less discussed by those interested in philosophy, 
a creature called the SoHpsist, who is credited with this doctrine. 
But men do not become soHpsists, though they certainly say 
things now and then that other men think logically lead to some 
such unnatural view of things; and more rarely they say things 
that sound as if the speaker, in some moods, at least, might 
actually harbor such a view. 

Thus the philosopher Fichte (i 762-1814) talks in certain of 
his writings as though he believed himself to be the universe, 
and his words cause Jean Paul Richter, the inimitable, to break 
out in his characteristic way: "The very worst of it all is the 
lazy, aimless, aristocratic, insular life that a god must lead; 
he has no one to go with. If I am not to sit still for all time and 
eternity, if I let myself down as well as I can and make myself 
finite, that I may have something in the way of society, still I 
have, like petty princes, only my own creatures to echo my 
words. . . . Every being, even the highest Being, wishes 
something to love and to honor. But the Fichtean doctrine 
that I am my own body-maker leaves me with nothing what- 
ever — with not so much as the beggar's dog or the prisoner's 
spider. . . . Truly I wish that there were men, and that I 
were one of them. ... If there exists, as I very much fear, 
no one but myself, unlucky dog that I am, then there is no one 
at such a pass as I." 

Just how much Fichte's words meant to the man who wrote 

133 



134 -^^^ Introductio7i to Philosophy 

them may be a matter for dispute. Certainly no one has shown 
a greater moral earnestness or a greater regard for his fellow- 
men than this philosopher, and we must not hastily accuse any 
one of being a solipsist. But that to certain men, and, indeed, 
to many men, there have come thoughts that have seemed to 
point in this direction — that not a few have had doubts as to 
their ability to prove the existence of other minds — this we 
must admit. 

It appears somewhat easier for a man to have doubts upon 
this subject when he has fallen into the idealistic error of regard- 
ing .the material world, which seems to be revealed to him, as 
nothing else than his "ideas" or "sensations" or "impressions." 
If we will draw the whole "telephone exchange" into the clerk, 
there seems little reason for not including all the subscribers 
as well. If other men's bodies are my sensations, may not 
other men's minds be my imaginings? But doubts may be 
felt also by those who are willing to admit a real external world. 
How do we know that our inference to the existence of other 
minds is a justifiable inference? Can there be such a thing as 
veri-fication in this field? 

For we must remember that no man is directly conscious 
of any mind except his own. Men cannot exhibit their minds 
to their neighbors as they exhibit their wigs. However close 
may seem to us to be our intercourse with those about us, do 
we ever attain to anything more than our ideas of the contents 
of their minds? We do not experience these contents; we 
picture them, we represent them by certain proxies. To be 
sure, we believe that the originals exist, but can we be quite 
sure of it? Can there be a proof of this right to make the leap 
from one consciousness to another? We seem to assume that 
we can make it, and then we make it again and again; but sup- 
pose, after all, that there were nothing there. Could we ever 
find out our error? And in a field where it is impossible to prove 
error, must it not be equally impossible to prove truth? 



How we know there are Other Minds 135 

The doubt has seemed by no means a gratuitous one to 
certain very sensible practical men. "It is wholly impossible," 
writes Professor Huxley/ "absolutely to prove the presence or 
absence of consciousness in anything but one's own brain, 
though by analogy, we are justified in assuming its existence 
in other men." " The existence of my conception of you in my 
consciousness," says Clifford,^ "carries with it a belief in the 
existence of you outside of my consciousness. . . . How this 
inference is justified, how consciousness can testify to the exist- 
ence of anything outside of itself, I do not pretend to say: 
I need not untie a knot which the world has cut for me long 
ago. It may very well be that I myself am the only existence, 
but it is simply ridiculous to suppose that anybody else is. The 
position of absolute idealism may, therefore, be left out of 
count, although each individual may be unable to justify his 
dissent from it." 

These are writers belonging to our own modern age, and they 
are men of science. Both of them deny that the existence of 
other minds is a thing that can be proved; but the one tells us 
that we are "justified in assuming" their existence, and the 
other informs us that, although " it may very well be " that no 
other mind exists, we may leave that possibility out of count. 

Neither position seems a sensible one. Are we justified in 
assuming what cannot be proved ? or is the argument " from 
analogy" really a proof of some sort? Is it right to close our 
eyes to what "may very well be," just because we choose to do 
so? The fact is that both of these writers had the conviction, 
shared by us all, that there are other minds, and that we know 
something about them; and yet neither of them could see that 
the conviction rested upon an unshakable foundation. 

Now, I have no desire to awake in the mind of any one a 

^ "Collected Essays," Vol. I, p. 219. New York, 1902. 
^ " On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves," in " Lectures and Essays," 
Vol. II. 



136 An Introduction to Philosophy 

doubt of the existence of other minds. But I think we must 
all admit that the man who recognizes that such minds are not 
directly perceived, and who harbors doubts as to the nature of 
the inference which leads to their assumption, may, perhaps, 
be able to say that he feels certain that there are other minds; 
but must we not at the same time admit that he is scarcely in 
a position to say: it is certain that there are other minds? The 
question will keep coming back again: May there not, after 
all, be a legitimate doubt on the subject? 

To set this question at rest there seems to be only one way, 
and that is this: to ascertain the nature of the inference which 
is made, and to see clearly what can be meant by prooj when 
one is concerned with such matters as these. If it turns out 
that we have proof, in the only sense of the word in which it 
is reasonable to ask for proof, our doubt falls away of itself. 

41. The Argument for Other Minds. — I have said early in 
this volume (§7) that the plain man perceives that other men 
act very much as he does, and that he attributes to them minds 
more or less like his own. He reasons from like to like — other 
bodies present phenomena which, in the case of his own body, 
he perceives to be indicative of mind, and he accepts them as 
indicative of mind there also. The psychologist makes constant 
use of this inference; indeed, he could not develop his science 
without it. 

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), whom it is always a pleasure 
to read because he is so clear and straightforward, presents 
this argument in the following form : ^ — 

"By what evidence do I know, or by what considerations am 
I led to believe, that there exist other sentient creatures; that 
the walking and speaking figures which I see and hear, have 
sensations and thoughts, or, in other words, possess Minds? 
The most strenuous Intuitionist does not include this among 
the things that I know by direct intuition. I conclude it from 
^ " Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," Chapter XII. 



How we know there are Other Minds 137 

certain things, which my experience of my own states of feeling 
proves to me to be marks of it. These marks are of two kinds, 
antecedent and subsequent; the previous conditions requisite 
for feehng, and the effects or consequences of it. I conclude 
that other human beings have feelings like me, because, first, 
they have bodies like me, which I know, in my own case, to be 
the antecedent condition of feelings; and because, secondly, 
they exhibit the acts, and other outward signs, which in my own 
case I know by experience to be caused by feelings. I am con- 
scious in myself of a series of facts connected by a uniform 
sequence, of which the beginning is modifications of my body, 
the middle is feelings, the end is outward demeanor. In the 
case of other human beings I have the evidence of my senses 
for the first and last links of the series, but not for the inter- 
mediate link. I find, however, that the sequence between the 
first and last is as regular and constant in those other cases as 
it is in mine. In my own case I know that the first fink produces 
the last through the intermediate link, and could not produce 
it without. Experience, therefore, obliges me to conclude that 
there must be an intermediate link; which must either be the 
same in others as in myself, or a different one. I must either 
beheve them to be alive, or to be automatons; and by believing 
them to be alive, that is, by supposing the link to be of the 
same nature as in the case of which I have experience, and which 
is in all respects similar, I bring other human beings, as phenom- 
ena, under the same generalizations which I know by ex- 
perience to be the true theory of my own existence. And in 
doing so I conform to the legitimate rules of experimental in- 
quiry. The process is exactly parallel to that by which Newton 
proved that the force which keeps the planets in their orbits is 
identical with that by which an apple falls to the ground. It 
was not incumbent on Newton to prove the impossibility of 
its being any other force; he was thought to have made out his 
point when he had simply shown that no other force need be 



138 An Introduction to Philosophy 

supposed. We know the existence of other beings by generah- 
zation from the knowledge of our own ; the generaHzation merely 
postulates that what experience shows to be a mark of the 
existence of something within the sphere of our consciousness, 
may be concluded to be a mark of the same thing beyond that 
sphere." 

Now, the plain man accepts the argument from analogy, 
here insisted upon, every day of his life. He is continually 
forming an opinion as to the contents of other minds on a basis 
of the bodily manifestations presented to his view. The pro- 
cess of inference is so natural and instinctive that we are tempted 
to say that it hardly deserves to be called an inference. Cer- 
tainly the man is not conscious of distinct steps in the process; 
he perceives certain phenomena, and they are at once illumi- 
nated by their interpretation. He reads other men as we read 
a book — the signs on the paper are scarcely attended to, our 
whole thought is absorbed in that for which they stand. As 
I have said above, the psychologist accepts the argument, and 
founds his conclusions upon it. 

Upon what ground can one urge that this inference to other 
minds is a doubtful one? It is made universally. We have 
seen that even those who have theoretic objections against it, 
do not hesitate to draw it, as a matter of fact. It appears un- 
natural in the extreme to reject it. What can induce men to 
regard it with suspicion? 

I think the answer to this question is rather clearly suggested 
in the sentence already quoted from Professor Huxley: "It 
is wholly impossible absolutely to prove the presence or absence 
of consciousness in anything but one's own brain, though, by 
analogy, we are justified in assuming its existence in other 
men." 

Here Professor Huxley admits that we have something like 
a proof, for he regards the inference as justified. But he does 
not think that we have absolute proof — the best that we can 



How we know theT'e are Other Minds 139 

attain to appears to be a degree of probability falling short of 
the certainty which we should like to have. 

Now, it should be remarked that the discredit cast upon the 
argument for other minds has its source in the fact that it does 
not satisfy a certain assumed standard. What is that standard ? 
It is the standard of proof which we may look for and do look 
for where we are concerned to establish the existence of material 
things with the highest degree of certainty. 

There are all sorts of indirect ways of proving the existence 
of material things. We may read about them in a newspaper, 
and regard them as highly doubtful; we may have the word of 
a man whom, on the whole, we regard as veracious; we may 
infer their existence, because we perceive that certain other 
things exist, and are to be accounted for. Under certain cir- 
cumstances, however, we may have proof of a different kind: 
we may see and touch the things themselves. Material things 
are open to direct inspection. Such a direct inspection con- 
stitutes absolute proof, so far as material things are concerned. 

But we have no right to set this up as our standard of absolute 
proof, when we are talking about other minds. In this field 
it is not proof at all. Anything that can be directly inspected 
is not another mind. We cannot cast a doubt upon the exist- 
ence of colors by pointing to the fact that we cannot smell them. 
If they could be smelt, they would not be colors. We must in 
each case seek a proof of the appropriate kind. 

What have we a right to regard as absolute proof of the ex- 
istence of another mind ? Only this : the analogy upon which 
we depend in making our inference must be a very close one. 
As we shall see in the next section, the analogy is sometimes very 
remote, and we draw the inference with much hesitation, or, 
perhaps, refuse to draw it at all. It is not, however, the kind 
0} inference that makes the trouble; it is the lack of detailed 
information that may serve as a basis for inference. Our 
inference to other minds is unsatisfactory only in so far as we 



140 An Introduction to Philosophy 

are ignorant of our own minds and bodies and of other bodies. 
Were our knowledge in these fields complete, we should know 
without fail the signs of mind, and should know whether an in- 
ference were or were not justified. 

And justified here means proved — proved in the only sense 
in which we have a right to ask for proof. No single fact is 
known that can discredit such a proof. Our doubt is, then, 
gratuitous and can be dismissed. We may claim that we have 
verification of the existence of other minds. Such verification, 
however, must consist in showing that, in any given instance, 
the signs of mind really are present. It cannot consist in 
presenting minds for inspection as though they were material 
things. 

One more matter remains to be touched upon in this section. 
It has doubtless been observed that Mill, in the extract given 
above, seems to place "feelings," in other words, mental phe- 
nomena, between one set of bodily motions and another. He 
makes them the middle link in a chain whose first and third 
links are material. The parallelist cannot treat mind in this 
way. He claims that to make mental phenomena effects or 
causes of bodily motions is to make them material. 

Must, then, the parallelist abandon the argument for other 
minds? Not at all. The force of the argument Hes in inter- 
preting the phenomena presented by other bodies as one knows 
by experience the phenomena of one's own body must be inter- 
preted. He who concludes that the relation between his own 
mind and his own body can best be described as a "parallel- 
ism," must judge that other men's minds are related to their 
bodies in the same way. He must treat his neighbor as he 
treats himself. The argument from analogy remains the same. 

42. What Other Minds are There? — That other men have 
minds nobody really doubts, as we have seen above. They 
resemble us so closely, their actions are so analogous to our 
own, that, although we sometimes give ourselves a good deal of 



How we know there are Other Minds 141 

trouble to ascertain what sort of minds they have, we never 
think of asking ourselves whether they have minds. 

Nor does it ever occur to the man who owns a dog, or who 
drives a horse, to ask himself whether the creature has a mind. 
He may complain that it has not much of a mind, or he may 
marvel at its intelligence — his attitude will depend upon the 
expectations which he has been led to form. But regard the 
animal as he would regard a bicycle or an automobile, he will 
not. The brute is not precisely like us, but its actions bear an 
unmistakable analogy to our own; pleasure and pain, hope and 
fear, desire and aversion, are so plainly to be read into them 
that we feel that a man must be " high gravel bhnd" not to see 
their significance. 

Nevertheless, it has been possible for man, under the pre- 
possession of a mistaken philosophical theory, to assume the 
whole brute creation to be without consciousness. When 
Descartes had learned something of the mechanism of the human 
body, and had placed the human soul — hospes comesque cor- 
poris — in the little pineal gland in the midst of the brain, the 
conception in his mind was not unlike that which we have when 
we picture to ourselves a locomotive engine with an engineer 
in its cab. The man gives intelligent direction; but, under 
some circumstances, the machine can do a good deal in the 
absence of the man; if it is started, it can run of itself, and to 
do this, it must go through a series of complicated motions. 

Descartes knew that many of the actions performed by the 
human body are not the result of conscious choice, and that 
some of them are in direct contravention of the will's commands. 
The eye protects itself by dropping its lid, when the hand is 
brought suddenly before it; the foot jerks away from the heated 
object which it has accidentally touched. The body was seen 
to be a mechanism relatively independent of the mind, and one 
rather complete in itself. Joined with a soul, the circle of its 
functions was conceived to be widened; but even without the 



142 An Introduction to Philosophy 

assistance of the soul, it was thought that it could keep itself 
busy, and could do many things that the unreflective might be 
inclined to attribute to the efhciency of the mind. 

The bodies of the brutes Descartes regarded as mechanisms 
of the same general nature as the human body. He was un- 
wiUing to allow a soul to any creature below man, so nothing 
seemed left to him save to maintain that the brutes are machines 
without consciousness, and that their apparently purposive 
actions are to be classed with such human movements as the 
sudden closing of the eye when it is threatened with the hand. 
The melancholy results of this doctrine made themselves evident 
among his followers. Even the mild and pious Malebranche 
could be brutal to a dog which fawned upon him, under the 
mistaken notion that it did not really hurt a dog to kick it. 

All this reasoning men have long ago set aside. For one 
thing, it has come to be recognized that there may be conscious- 
ness, perhaps rather dim, blind, and fugitive, but still conscious- 
ness, which does not get itself recognized as do our clearly 
conscious purposes and volitions. Many of the actions of 
man which Descartes was inclined to regard as unaccompa- 
nied by consciousness may not, in fact, be really uncon- 
scious. And, in the second place, it has come to be realized 
that we have no right to class all the actions of the brutes 
with those reflex actions in man which we are accustomed to 
regard as automatic. 

The belief in animal automatism has passed away, it is to be 
hoped, never to return. That lower animals have minds we 
must believe. But what sort of minds have they? 

It is hard enough to gain an accurate notion of what is going 
on in a human mind. Men resemble each other more or less 
closely, but no two are precisely alike, and no two have had 
exactly the same training. I may misunderstand even the man 
who lives in the same house with me and is nearly related to 
me. Does he really suffer and enjoy as acutely as he seems to? 



How we know there are Other Minds 143 

or must his words and actions be accepted with a discount? The 
greater the difference between us, the more danger that I shall 
misjudge him. It is to be expected that men should misunder- 
stand women; that men and women should misunderstand 
children; that those who differ in social station, in education, 
in traditions and habits of life, should be in danger of reading 
each other as one reads a book in a tongue imperfectly mas- 
tered. When these differences are very great, the task is an 
extremely difficult one. What are the emotions, if he has any, 
of the Chinaman in the laundry near by? His face seems as 
difl&cult of interpretation as are the hieroglyphics that he has 
pasted up on his window. 

When we come to the brutes, the case is distinctly worse. 
We think that we can attain to some notion of the minds to be 
attributed to such animals as the ape, the dog, the cat, the 
horse, and it is not nonsense to speak of an animal psychology. 
But who will undertake to tell us anything definite of the mind 
of a fly, a grasshopper, a snail, or a cuttlefish? That they have 
minds, or something hke minds, we must believe; what their 
minds are like, a prudent man scarcely even attempts to say. 
In our distribution of minds may we stop short of even the very 
lowest animal organisms? It seems arbitrary to do so. 

More than that; some thoughtful men have been led by the 
analogy between plant life and animal life to believe that some- 
thing more or less remotely like the consciousness which we 
attribute to animals must be attributed also to plants. Upon 
this belief I shall not dwell, for here we are evidently at the 
Hmit of our knowledge, and are making the vaguest of guesses. 
No one pretends that we have even the beginnings of a plant 
psychology. At the same time, we must admit that organisms 
of all sorts do bear some analogy to each other, even if it be a 
remote one ; and we must admit also that we cannot prove plants 
to be wholly devoid of a rudimentary consciousness of some sort. 

As we begin with man and descend the scale of beings, we 



144 ^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

seem, in the upper part of the series, to be in no doubt that 
minds exist. Our only question is as to the precise contents of 
those minds. Further down we begin to ask ourselves whether 
anything like mind is revealed at all. That this should be so 
is to be expected. Our argument for other minds is the argu- 
ment from analogy^ and as we move down the scale our analogy 
grows more and more remote until it seems to fade out alto- 
gether. He who harbors doubts as to whether the plants enjoy 
some sort of psychic life, may well find those doubts intensified 
when he turns to study the crystal; and when he contemplates 
inorganic matter he should admit that the thread of his argument 
has become so attenuated that he cannot find it at all. 

43. The Doctrine of Mind- stuff. — Nevertheless, there have 
been those who have attributed something like consciousness 
even to inorganic matter. If the doctrine of evolution be true, 
argues Professor Clifford,^ "we shall have along the line of the 
human pedigree a series of imperceptible steps connecting in- 
organic matter with ourselves. To the later members of that 
series we must undoubtedly ascribe consciousness, although it 
must, of course, have been simpler than our own. But where 
are we to stop? In the case of organisms of a certain complexity, 
consciousness is inferred. As we go back along the line, the 
complexity of the organism and of its nerve-action insensibly 
diminishes; and for the first part of our course we see reason 
to think that the complexity of consciousness insensibly dimin- 
ishes also. But if we make a jump, say to the tunicate moUusks, 
we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness at 
all. Yet not only is it impossible to point out a place where 
any sudden break takes place, but it is contrary to all the natural 
training of our minds to suppose a breach of continuity so great." 

We must not, says Clifford, admit any breach of continuity. 
We must assume that consciousness is a complex of elementary 
feehngs, "or rather of those remoter elements which cannot even 

^ " On the Nature of Things-in-Themselves." 



How we know there are Other Minds 145 

be felt, but of which the simplest feeling is built up." We 
must assume that such elementary facts go along with the 
action of every organism, however simple; but we must assume 
also that it is only when the organism has reached a certain 
complexity of nervous structure that the complex of psychic facts 
reaches the degree of complication that we call Consciousness. 

So much for the assumption of something like mind in the 
mollusk, where Clifford cannot find direct evidence of mind. 
But the argument does not stop here: ''As the line of ascent is 
unbroken, and must end at last in inorganic matter, we have 
no choice but to admit that every motion of matter is simul- 
taneous with some . . . fact or event which might be part of 
a consciousness." 

Of the universal distribution of the elementary constituents 
of mind Chfford writes as follows: "That element of which, as 
we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I shall 
call Mind-stufj. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does 
not possess mind or consciousness; but it possesses a small 
piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together 
as to form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements 
of mind-stuff which go along with them are so combined as to 
form the faint beginnings of Sentience. When the molecules are 
so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a 
vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff are so 
combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to 
say, changes in the complex which take place at the same time 
get so linked together that the repetition of one imphes the 
repetition of the other. When matter takes the complex form 
of a living human brain, the corresponding mind-stuff takes the 
form of a human consciousness, having intelligence and vohtion." 

This is the famous mind-stuff doctrine. It is not a scientific 
doctrine, for it rests on wholly unproved assumptions. It is a 
play of the speculative fancy, and has its source in the author's 
strong desire to fit mental phenomena into some general evo- 



146 An Introduction to Philosophy 

lutionary scheme. As he is a paralleHst, and cannot make of 
physical phenomena and of mental one single series of causes 
and effects, he must attain his end by making the mental series 
complete and independent in itself. To do this, he is forced 
to make several very startling assumptions : — 

(i) We have seen that there is evidence that there is conscious- 
ness somewhere — it is revealed by certain bodies. Clifford 
assumes consciousness, or rather its raw material, mind-stujf, 
to be everywhere. For this assumption we have not a whit of 
evidence. 

(2) To make of the stuff thus attained a satisfactory evolu- 
tionary series, he is compelled to assume that mental phenomena 
are related to each other much as physical phenomena are 
related to each other. This notion he had from Spinoza, who 
held that, just as all that takes place in the physical world must 
be accounted for by a reference to physical causes, so all happen- 
ings in the world of ideas must be accounted for by a reference 
to mental causes, i.e. to ideas. For this assumption there is 
no more evidence than for the former. 

(3) Finally, to bring the mental phenomena we are familiar 
with, sensations of color, sound, touch, taste, etc., into this 
evolutionary scheme, he is forced to assume that all such mental 
phenomena are made up of elements which do not belong to 
these classes at all, of something that "cannot even be felt." 
For this assumption there is as little evidence as there is for 
the other two. 

The fact is that the mind-stuff doctrine is a castle in the air. 
It is too fanciful and arbitrary to take seriously. It is much 
better to come back to a more sober view of things, and to hold 
that there is evidence that other minds exist, but no evidence 
that every material thing is animated. If we cannot fit this 
into our evolutionary scheme, perhaps it is well to reexamine 
our evolutionary scheme, and to see whether some misconcep- 
tion may not attach to that. 



CHAPTER XI 
OTHER PROBLEMS OF WORLD AND MIND 

44. Is the Material World a Mechanism? — So far we have 
concerned ourselves with certain leading problems touching 
the external world and the mind, — problems which seem to 
present themselves unavoidably to those who enter upon the 
path of reflection. And we have seen, I hope, that there is 
much truth, as well as some misconception, contained in the 
rather vague opinions of the plain man. 

But the problems that we have taken up by no means exhaust 
the series of those that present themselves to one who thinks 
with patience and persistency. When we have decided that 
men are not mistaken in believing that an external world is 
presented in their experience; when we have corrected our first 
crude notions of what this world is, and have cleared away some 
confusions from our conceptions of space and time; when we 
have attained to a reasonably clear view of the nature of the 
mind, and of the nature of its connection with the body; when 
we have escaped from a tumble into the absurd doctrine that 
no mind exists save our own, and have turned our backs upon 
the rash speculations of the adherents of "mind-stuff" ; there 
still remain many points upon which we should like to have 
definite information. 

In the present chapter I shall take up and turn over a few of 
these, but it must not be supposed that one can get more than 
a glimpse of them within such narrow limits. First of all we 
will raise the question whether it is permissible to regard the 
material world, which we accept, as through and through a 
mechanism. 

147 



148 An Introduction to Philosophy 

There can be little doubt that there is a tendency on the part 
of men of science at the present day so to regard it. It should, 
of course, be frankly admitted that no one is in a position to 
prmje that, from the cosmic mist, in which we grope for the 
beginnings of our universe, to the organized whole in which 
vegetable and animal bodies have their place, there is an un- 
broken series of changes all of which are exphcable by a refer- 
ence to mechanical laws. Chemistry, physics, and biology are 
still separate and distinct realms, and it is at present impossible 
to find for them a common basis in mechanics. The belief of 
the man of science must, hence, be regarded as a faith; the 
doctrine of the mechanism of nature is a working hypothesis, 
and it is unscientific to assume that it is anything more. 

There can be no objection to a frank admission that we are 
not here walking in the hght of established knowledge. But 
it does seem to savor of dogmatism for a man to insist that no 
increase in our knowledge can ever reveal that the physical 
world is an orderly system throughout, and that all the changes 
in material things are explicable in terms of the one unified 
science. Earnest objections have, however, been made to the 
tendency to regard nature as a mechanism. To one of the 
most curious of them we have been treated lately by Dr. Ward 
in his book on "Naturalism and Agnosticism." 

It is there ingeniously argued that, when we examine with 
care the fundamental concepts of the science of mechanics, we 
find them to be self-contradictory and absurd. It follows that 
we are not justified in turning to them for an explanation of the 
order of nature. 

The defense of the concepts of mechanics we may safely 
leave to the man of science; remembering, of course, that, 
when a science is in the making, it is to be expected that the 
concepts of which it makes use should undergo revision from 
time to time. But there is one general consideration that it 
is not well to leave out of view when we are contemplating such 



Other Problems of World and Mmd 149 

an assault upon the notion of the world as mechanism as is 
made by Dr. Ward. It is this. 

Such attacks upon the conception of mechanism are not 
purely destructive in their aim. The man who makes them 
wishes to destroy one view of the system of things in order that 
he may set up another. If the changes in the system of material 
things cannot be accounted for mechanically, it is argued, we 
are compelled to turn for our explanation to the action and 
interaction of minds. This seems to give mind a very important 
place in the universe, and is believed to make for a view of 
things that guarantees the satisfaction of the highest hopes and 
aspirations of man. 

That a recognition of the mechanical order of nature is in- 
compatible with such a view of things as is just above indicated, 
I should be the last to admit. The notion that it is so is, I be- 
Heve, a dangerous error. It is an error that tends to put a man 
out of sympathy with the efforts of science to discover that the 
world is an orderly whole, and tempts him to rejoice in the con- 
templation of human ignorance. 

But the error is rather a common one; and see to what in- 
justice it may lead one. It is concluded that the conception of 
matter is an obscure one; that we do not know clearly what we 
mean when we speak of the mass of a body; that there are dis- 
putes as to proper significance to be given to the words cause 
and effect; that the laws of motion, as they are at present formu- 
lated, do not seem to account satisfactorily for the behavior of 
all material particles. From this it is inferred that we must 
give up the attempt to explain mechanically the order of 
physical things. 

Now, suppose that it were considered a dangerous and hetero- 
dox doctrine, that the changes in the system of things are due to 
the activities of minds. Would not those who now love to point 
out the shortcomings of the science of mechanics discover a 
fine field for their destructive criticism? Arc there no disputes 



150 An Introduction to Philosophy 

as to the ultimate nature of mind ? Are men agreed touching 
the relations of mind and matter? What science even attempts 
to tell us how a mind, by an act of volition, sets material particles 
in motion or changes the direction of their motion? How does 
one mind act upon another, and what does it mean for one mind 
to act upon another? 

If the science of mechanics is not in all respects as complete 
a science as it is desirable that it should be, surely we must admit 
that when we turn to the field of mind we are not dealing with 
what is clear and free from difficulties. Only a strong emotional 
bias can lead a man to dwell with emphasis upon the difficulties 
to be met with in the one field, and to pass lightly over those 
with which one meets in the other. 

One may, however, refuse to admit that the order of nature 
is throughout mechanical, without taking any such unreasonable 
position as this. One may hold that many of the changes in 
material things do not appear to be mechanical, and that it is 
too much of an assumption to maintain that they are such, even 
as an article of faith. Thus, when we pass from the world of 
the inorganic to that of organic life, we seem to make an im- 
mense step. No one has even begun to show us that the changes 
that take place in vegetable and animal organisms are all 
mechanical changes. How can we dare to assume that they 
are? 

With one who reasons thus we may certainly feel a sympathy. 
The most ardent advocate of mechanism must admit that his 
doctrine is a working hypothesis, and not proved to be true. 
Its acceptance would, however, be a genuine convenience from 
the point of view of science, for it does introduce, at least pro- 
visionally, a certain order into a vast number of facts, and gives 
a direction to investigation. Perhaps the wisest thing to do is, 
not to combat the doctrine, but to accept it tentatively and to 
examine carefully what conclusions it may seem to carry with 
it — how it may affect our outlook upon the world as a whole. 



Other Problems of World and Mind 151 

45. The Place of Mind in Nature. — One of the very first 
questions which we think of asking when we contemplate the 
possibihty that the physical world is throughout a mechanical 
system is this : How can we conceive minds to be related to such 
a system? That minds, and many minds, do exist, it is not 
reasonable to doubt. What shall we do with them? 

One must not misunderstand the mechanical view of things. 
When we use the word "machine," we call before our minds 
certain gross and relatively simple mechanisms constructed by 
man. Between such and a flower, a butterfly, and a human 
body, the difference is enormous. He who elects to bring the 
latter under the title of mechanism cannot mean that he dis- 
cerns no difference between them and a steam engine or a 
printing press. He can only mean that he believes he might, 
could he attain to a glimpse into their infinite complexity, find 
an explanation of the physical changes which take place in them, 
by a reference to certain general laws which describe the behavior 
of material particles everywhere. 

And the man who, having extended his notion of mechanism, 
is inclined to overlook the fact that animals and men have 
minds, that thought and feeling, plan and purpose, have their 
place in the world, may justly be accused of a headlong and 
heedless enthusiasm. Whatever may be our opinion on the 
subject of the mechanism of nature, we have no right to mini- 
mize the significance of thought and feeling and will. Between 
that which has no mind and that which has a mind there is a 
difference which cannot be obliterated by bringing both under 
the concept of mechanism. It is a difference which furnishes 
the material for the sciences of psychology and ethics, and gives 
rise to a whole world of distinctions which find no place in the 
realm of the merely physical. 

There are, then, minds as well as bodies; what place shall 
we assign to these minds in the system of nature? 

Several centuries ago it occurred to the man of science that the 



152 A71 hitrodtution to Philosophy 

material world should be regarded as a system in which there 
is constant transformation, but in which nothing is created. 
This way of looking at things expressed itself formerly in the 
statement that, through all the changes that take place in the 
world, the quantity of matter and motion remains the same. 
To-day the same idea is better expressed in the doctrine of the 
eternity of mass and the conservation of energy. In plain 
language, this doctrine teaches that every change in every part 
of the physical world, every motion in matter, must be preceded 
by physical conditions which may be regarded as the equiva- 
lent of the change in question. 

But this makes the physical world a closed system, a some- 
thing complete in itself. Where is there room in such a system 
for minds? 

It does indeed seem hard to find in such a system a place for 
minds, if one conceives of minds as does the interactionist. We 
have seen (§36) that the interactionist makes the mind act upon 
matter very much as one particle of matter is supposed to act 
upon another. Between the physical and the mental he assumes 
that there are causal relations; i.e. physical changes must be 
referred to mental causes sometimes, and mental changes to 
physical. This means that he finds a place for mental facts 
by inserting them as links in the one chain of causes and effects 
with physical facts. If he is not allowed to break the chain and 
insert them, he does not know what to do with them. 

The paralleHst has not the same difficulty to face. He who 
holds that mental phenomena must not be built into the one 
series of causes and effects with physical phenomena may freely 
admit that physical phenomena form a closed series, an orderly 
system of their own, and he may yet find a place in the world 
for minds. He refuses to regard them as a part of the world- 
mechanism, but he relates them to physical things, conceiving 
them as parallel to the physical in the sense described (§§37-39). 
He insists that, even if we hold that there are gaps in the physi- 



Other Problems of World and Mind 153 

cal order of causes and effects, we cannot conceive these gaps 
to be filled by mental phenomena, simply because they are 
mental phenomena. They belong to an order of their own. 
Hence, the assumption that the physical series is unbroken does 
not seem to him to crowd mental phenomena out of their place 
in the world at all. They must, in any case, occupy the place 
that is appropriate to them (§38). 

It will be noticed that this doctrine that the chain of physical 
causes and effects is nowhere broken, and that mental phenom- 
ena are related to it as the parallelist conceives them to be, 
makes the world-system a very orderly one. Every phenomenon 
has its place in it, and can be accounted for, whether it be physi- 
cal or mental. To some, the thought that the world is such an 
orderly thing is in the highest degree repugnant. They ob- 
ject that, in such a world, there is no room for jree-will; and they 
object, further, that there is no room for the activity of minds. 
Both of these objections I shall consider in this chapter. 

But first, I must say a few words about a type of doctrine 
lately insisted upon,^ which bears some resemblance to interac- 
tionism as we usually meet with it, and, nevertheless, tries to 
hold on to the doctrine of the conservation of energy. It is 
this : — 

The concept of energy is stretched in such a way as to make 
it cover mental phenomena as well as physical. It is claimed 
that mental phenomena and physical phenomena are alike 
"manifestations of energy," and that the coming into being of 
a consciousness is a mere "transformation," a something to be 
accounted for by the disappearance from the physical world 
of a certain equivalent — perhaps of some motion. It will be 
noticed that this is one rather subtle way of obHterating the 
distinction between mental phenomena and physical. In so 
far it resembles the interactionist's doctrine. 

In criticism of it we may say that he who accepts it has 

1 Ostwald, " Vorlesungen fiber Naturphilosophie," s. 396. Leipzig, 1903. 



154 ^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

wandered away from a rather widely recognized scientific 
hypothesis, and has substituted for it a very doubtful specula- 
tion for which there seems to be no whit of evidence. It is, 
moreover, a speculation repugnant to the scientific mind, when 
its significance is grasped. Shall we assume without evidence 
that, when a man wakes in the morning and enjoys a mental 
Hfe suspended or diminished during the night, his thoughts and 
feelings have come into being at the expense of his body? Shall 
we assume that the mass of his body has been slightly diminished, 
or that motions have disappeared in a way that cannot be ac- 
counted for by a reference to the laws of matter in motion? 
This seems an extraordinary assumption, and one httle in har- 
mony with the doctrine of the eternity of mass and the con- 
servation of energy as commonly understood. We need not 
take it seriously so long as it is quite unsupported by evidence. 

46. The Order of Nature and "Free-will." — In a world as 
orderly as, in the previous section, this world is conceived to be, 
is there any room for freedom? What if the man of science is 
right in suspecting that the series of physical causes and effects 
is nowhere broken? Must we then conclude that we are never 
free? 

To many persons it has seemed that we are forced to draw 
this conclusion, and it is not surprising that they view the doc- 
trine with dismay. They argue: Mental phenomena are made 
parallel with physical, and the order of physical phenomena 
seems to be determined throughout, for nothing can happen in 
the world of matter unless there is some adequate cause of its 
happening. If, then, I choose to raise my finger, that move- 
ment must be admitted to have physical causes, and those causes 
other causes, and so on without end. If such a movement 
must always have its place in a causal series of this kind, how 
can it be regarded as a free movement? It is determined, and 
not free. 

Now, it is far from a pleasant thing to watch the man of 



Other Problems of World and Mind 155 

science busily at work trying to prove that the physical world 
is an orderly system, and all the while to feel in one's heart that 
the success of his efforts condemns one to slavery. It can 
hardly fail to make one's attitude towards science that of alarm 
and antagonism. From this I shall try to free the reader by 
showing that our freedom is not in the least danger, and that we 
may look on unconcerned. 

When we approach that venerable dispute touching the free- 
dom of the will, which has inspired men to such endless dis- 
cussions, and upon which they have written with such warmth 
and even acrimony, the very first thing to do is to discover what 
we have a right to mean when we call a man ]ree. As long 
as the meaning of the word is in doubt, the very subject of the 
dispute is in doubt. When may we, then, properly call a man 
free? What is the normal application of the term? 

I raise my finger. Every man of sense must admit that, 
under normal conditions, I can raise my finger or keep it down, 
as I please. There is no ground for a difference of opinion so far. 
But there is a further point upon which men differ. One 
holds that my "pleasing" and the brain-change that corresponds 
to it have their place in the world-order; that is, he maintains 
that every volition can be accounted for. Another holds that, 
under precisely the same circumstances, one may "please" or 
not "please"; which means that the "pleasing" cannot be 
wholly accounted for by anything that has preceded. The 
first man is a determinist, and the second a " free-willisL" I beg 
the reader to observe that the word " f ree-willist " is in quota- 
tion marks, and not to suppose that it means simply a believer 
in the freedom of the will. 

When in common hfe we speak of a man as free, what do 
we understand by the word ? Usually we mean that he is free 
from external compulsion. If my finger is held by another, I 
am not free to raise it. But I may be free in this sense, and yet 
one may demur to the statement that I am a free man. If a 



156 An Introduction to Philosophy 

pistol be held to my head with the remark, "Hands up!" my 
finger will mount very quickly, and the bystanders wiU main- 
tain that I had no choice. 

We speak in somewhat the same way of men under the in- 
fluence of intoxicants, of men crazed by some passion and unable 
to take into consideration the consequences of their acts, and 
of men bound by the spell of hypnotic suggestion. Indeed, 
whenever a man is in such a condition that he is glaringly in- 
capable of leading a normal human life and of being influenced 
by the motives that commonly move men, we are inclined to say 
that he is not free. 

But does it ever occur to us to maintain that, in general, the 
possession of a character and the capacity of being influenced 
by considerations make it impossible for a man to be free? 
Surely not. If I am a prudent man, I will invest my money in 
good securities. Is it sensible to say that I cannot have been 
free in refusing a twenty per cent investment, because I am by 
nature prudent ? Am I a slave because I eat when I am hungry, 
and can I partake of a meal freely, only when there is no reason 
why I should eat at all? 

He who calls me free only when my acts do violence to my 
nature or cannot be justified by a reference to anything what- 
ever has strange notions of freedom. Patriots, poets, moralists, 
have had much to say of freedom; men have lived for it, and 
have died for it; men love it as they love their own souls. Is 
the object of all this adoration the metaphysical absurdity in- 
dicated above? 

To insist that a man is free only in so far as his actions are 
unaccountable is to do violence to the meaning of a word in 
very common use, and to mislead men by perverting it to strange 
and unwholesome uses. Yet this is done by the "free-willist." 
He keeps insisting that man is free, and then goes on to main- 
tain that he cannot be free unless he is "free." He does not, 
unfortunately, supply the quotation marks, and he profits by 



Other Problems of World and Mind 157 

the natural mistake in identity. As he defines freedom it be- 
comes "freedom," which is a very different thing. 

What is this "freedom"? It is not freedom from external 
constraint. It is not freedom from overpowering passion. It 
is freedom from all the motives, good as well as bad, that we 
can conceive of as influencing man, and freedom also from 
oneself. 

It is well to get this quite clear. The " f ree-willist " main- 
tains that, in- so far as a man is "free," his actions cannot be 
accounted for by a reference to the order of causes at all — not 
by a reference to his character, hereditary or acquired; not by 
a reference to his surroundings. "Free" actions, in so far as 
they are "free," have, so to speak, sprung into being out of the 
void. What follows from such a doctrine? Listen: — 

(i) It follows that, in so far as I am "free," I am not the 
author of what appear to be my acts; who can be the cause of 
causeless actions? 

(2) It follows that no amount of effort on my part can prevent 
the appearance of "free" acts of the most deplorable kind. 
If one can condition their appearance or non-appearance, they 
are not "free" acts. 

(3) It follows that there is no reason to believe that there will 
beany congruity between my character and my "free" acts. 
I may be a saint by nature, and "freely" act like a scoundrel. 

(4) It follows that I can deserve no credit for "free" acts. 
I am not their author. 

(5) It follows that, in so far as I am "free," it is useless to 
praise me, to blame me, to punish me, to endeavor to persuade 
me. I must be given over to unaccountable sainthood or to a 
reprobate mind, as it happens to happen. I am quite beyond 
the pale of society, for my neighbor cannot influence my "free" 
acts any more than I can. 

(6) It follows that, in so far as I am "free," I am in something 
very like a state of slavery; and yet, curiously enough, it is a 



158 An Introduction to Philosophy 

slavery without a master. In the old stories of Fate, men were 
represented as puppets in the hand of a power outside them- 
selves. Here I am a puppet in no hand; but I am a puppet just 
the same, for I am the passive spectator of what •appear to be 
my acts. I do not do the things I seem to do. They are 
done for me or in me — or, rather, they are not done, but 
just happen. 

Such "freedom" is a wretched thing to offer to a man who 
longs for freedom; for the freedom to act out his own impulses, 
to guide his life according to his own ideals. It is a mere travesty 
on freedom, a fiction of the philosophers, which inspires respect 
only so long as one has not pierced the disguise of its respectable 
name. True freedom is not a thing to be sought in a disorderly 
and chaotic world, in a world in which actions are inexplicable 
and character does not count. Let us rinse our minds free 
of misleading verbal associations, and let us realize that a "free- 
will" neighbor would certainly not be to us an object of respect. 
He would be as offensive an object to have in our vicinity as a 
" free-will " gun or a " free-will " pocketknife. He would not 
be a rational creature. 

Our only concern need be for freedom, and this is in no 
danger in an orderly world. We all recognize this truth, in a 
way. We hold that a man of good character freely chooses the 
good, and a man of evil character freely chooses evil. Is not 
this a recognition of the fact that the choice is a thing to be 
accounted for, and is, nevertheless, a free choice? 

I have been considering above the world as it is conceived to 
be by the parallelist, but, to the reader who may not incline 
towards parallelism, I wish to point out that these reasonings 
touching the freedom of the will concern the interactionist just 
as closely. They have no necessary connection with parallelism. 
The interactionist, as well as the parallelist, may be a deter- 
minist, a believer in freedom, or he may be a "free-willist." 

He regards mental phenomena and physical phenomena as 



Other Problems of World and Mind 159 

links in the one chain of causes and effects. Shall he hold that 
certain mental links are "free-will" links, that they are wholly- 
unaccountable? If he does, all that has been said above about 
the " free-willist " applies to him. He believes in a disorderly- 
world, and he should accept the consequences of his doctrine. 

47. The Physical World and the Moral World. — I have said 
a little way back that, when we think of bodies as having minds, 
we are introduced to a world of distinctions which have no place 
in the realm of the merely physical. One of the objections made 
to the orderly world of the paralleHst was that in it there is no 
room for the activity of minds. Before we pass judgment on 
this matter, we should try to get some clear notion of what we 
may mean by the word " activity." The science of ethics must go 
by the board, if we cannot think of men as doing anything, as 
acting rightly or acting wrongly. 

Let us conceive a billiard ball in motion to come into colhsion 
with one at rest. We commonly speak of the first ball as active, 
and of the second as the passive subject upon which it exercises 
its activity. Are we justified in thus speaking ? 

In one sense, of course, we are. As I have several times had 
occasion to remark, we are, in common life, justified in using 
words rather loosely, provided that it is convenient to do so, and 
that it does not give rise to misunderstandings. 

But, in a stricter sense, we are not justified in thus speaking, 
for in doing so we are carrying over into the sphere of the merely 
physical a distinction which does not properly belong there, 
but has its place in another realm. The student of mechanics 
tells us that the second ball has affected the first quite as much 
as the first has affected the second. We cannot simply regard 
the first as cause and the second as effect, nor may we regard 
the motion of the first as cause and the subsequent motion 
of the second as its effect alone. The whole situation at the one 
instant — both balls, their relative positions and their motion and 
rest — must be taken as the cause of the whole situation at 



i6o An Introduction to Philosophy 

the next instant^ and in this whole situation the condition of the 
second ball has its place as well as that of the first. 

If, then, we insist that to have causal efficiency is the same 
thing as to be active, we should also admit that the second 
ball was active, and quite as active as the first. It has certainly 
had as much to do with the total result. But it offends us to 
speak of it in this way. We prefer to say that the first was 
active and the second was acted upon. What is the source of 
this distinction? 

Its original source is to be found in the judgments we pass 
upon conscious beings, bodies with minds; and it could never 
have been drawn if men had not taken into consideration the 
relations of minds to the changes in the physical world. As 
carried over to inanimate things it is a transferred distinction; 
and its transference to this field is not strictly justifiable, as has 
been indicated above. 

I must make this clear by an illustration. I hurry along a 
street towards the university, because the hour for my lecture is 
approaching. I am struck down by a falling tile. In my 
advance up the street I am regarded as active; in my fall to the 
ground I am regarded as passive. 

Now, looking at both occurrences from the purely physical 
point of view, we have nothing before us but a series of changes 
in the space relations of certain masses of matter; and in all 
those changes both my body and its environment are concerned. 
As I advance, my body cannot be regarded as the sole cause of 
the changes which are taking place. My progress would be 
impossible without the aid of the ground upon which I tread. 
Nor can I accuse the tile of being the sole cause of my demolition. 
Had I not been what I was and where I was, the tile would have 
fallen in vain. I must be regarded as a concurrent cause of 
my own disaster, and my unhappy state is attributable to me 
as truly as it is to the tile. 

Why, then, am I in the one case regarded as active and in 



Other Problems of World and Mind i6i 

the other as passive ? In each case I am a cause of the resuh. 
How does it happen that, in the first instance, I seem to most 
men to be the cause, and in the second to be not a cause at all ? 
The rapidity of my motion in the first instance cannot account 
for this judgment. He who rides in the police van and he who 
is thrown from the car of a balloon may move with great rapidity 
and yet be regarded as passive. 

Men speak as they do because they are not content to point 
out the physical antecedents of this and that occurrence and 
stop with that. They recognize that, between my advance up 
the street and my fall to the ground there is one very important 
difference. In the first case what is happening may he referred 
to an idea in my mind. Were the idea not there, I should not 
do what I am doing. In the second case, what has happened 
cannot he referred to an idea in my mind. 

Here we have come to the recognition that there are such 
things as purposes and ends; that an idea and some change in 
the external world may be related as plan and accomplishment. 
In other words, we have been brought face to face with what 
has been given the somewhat misleading name of final cause. 
In so far as that in the bringing about of which I have had a 
share is my end, I am active; in so far as it is not my end, but 
comes upon me as something not planned, I am passive. The 
enormous importance of the distinction may readily be seen; 
it is only in so far as I am a creature who can have purposes, 
that desire and will, foresight and prudence, right and wrong, 
can have a significance for me. 

I have dwelt upon the meaning of the words " activity " and 
" passivity," and have been at pains to distinguish them from cause 
and effect, because the two pairs of terms have often been con- 
founded with each other, and this confusion has given rise to 
a pecuHarly unfortunate error. It is this error that lies at the 
foundation of the objection referred to at the beginning of this 
section. 



1 62 An hitroduction to Philosophy 

We have seen that certain men of science are inclined to look 
upon the physical world as a great system, all the changes in 
which may be accounted for by an appeal to physical causes. 
And we have seen that the parallehst regards ideas, not as links 
in this chain, but as parallel with physical changes. 

It is argued by some that, if this is a true view of things, we 
must embrace the conclusion that the mind cannot he active at 
all, that it can accomplish nothing. We must look upon the 
mind as an "epiphenomenon," a useless decoration; and must 
regard man as "a physical automaton with parallel psychical 
states." 

Such abuse of one's fellow-man seems unchristian, and it is 
wholly uncalled for on any hypothesis. Our first answer to it 
is that it seems to be sufficiently refuted by the experiences of 
common life. We have abundant evidence that men's minds 
do count for something. I conclude that I want a coat, and I 
order one of my tailor; he beheves that I will pay for it, he wants 
the money, and he makes the coat; his man desires to earn 
his wages and he dehvers it. If I had not wanted the coat, if 
the tailor had not wanted my money, if the man had not wanted 
to earn his wages, the end would not have been attained. No 
philosopher has the right to deny these facts. 

Ah ! but, it may be answered, these three "wants" are not 
supposed to be the causes of the motions in matter which result 
in my appearing well-dressed on Sunday. They are only con- 
comitant phenomena. 

To this I reply: What of that? We must not forget what is 
meant by such concomitance (§ 39). We are deahng with a 
fixed and necessary relation, not with an accidental one. If 
these "wants" had been lacking, there would have been no 
coat. So my second answer to the objector is, that, on the 
hypothesis of the parallelist, the relations between mental 
phenomena and physical phenomena are just as dependable as 
that relation between physical phenomena which we call that 



Other Problems of World and Mind 163 

of cause and effect. Moreover, since activity and causality are 
not the same thing, there is no ground for asserting that the mind 
cannot be active, merely because it is not material and, hence, 
cannot be, strictly speaking, a cause of motions in matter. 

The plain man is entirely in the right in thinking that minds 
are active. The truth is that nothing can he active except as it 
has a mind. The relation of purpose and end is the one we have 
in view when we speak of the activity of minds. 

It is, thus, highly unjust to a man to tell him that he is "a 
physical automaton with parallel psychical states," and that 
he is wound up by putting food into his mouth. He who hears 
this may be excused if he feels it his duty to emit steam, walk 
with a jerk, and repudiate all responsibility for his actions. 
Creatures that think, form plans, and act, are not what we call 
automata. It is an abuse of language to call them such, and it 
misleads us into looking upon them as we have no right to look 
upon them. If men really were automata in the proper sense of 
the word, we could not look upon them as wise or unwise, good 
or bad; in short, the whole world of moral distinctions would 
vanish. 

Perhaps, in spite of all that has been said in this and in the 
preceding section, some will feel a certain repugnance to being 
assigned a place in a world as orderly as our world is in this 
chapter conceived to be — a world in which every phenomenon, 
whether physical or mental, has its definite place, and all are 
subject to law. But I suppose our content or discontent will 
not be independent of our conception of what sort of a world 
we conceive ourselves to be inhabiting. 

If we conclude that we are in a world in which God is re- 
vealed, if the orderliness of it is but another name for Divine 
Providence, we can scarcely feel the same as we would if we 
discovered in the world nothing of the Divine. I have in the 
last few pages been discussing the doctrine of purposes and ends, 
teleology, but I have said nothing of the significance of that 



164 -^n Introduction to Philosophy 

doctrine for Theism. The reader can easily see that it Hes at the 
very foundation of our behef in God. The only arguments for 
theism that have had much weight with mankind have been those 
which have maintained there are revealed in the world generally 
evidences of a plan and purpose at least analogous to what we 
discover when we scrutinize the actions of our fellow-man. 
Such arguments are not at the mercy of either interactionist 
or parallehst. On either hypothesis they stand unshaken. 

With this brief survey of some of the most interesting prob- 
lems that confront the philosopher, I must content myself here. 
Now let us turn and see how some of the fundamental problems 
treated in previous chapters have been approached by men 
belonging to certain well-recognized schools of thought. 

And since it is peculiarly true in philosophy that, to under- 
stand the present, one must know something of the past, we 
shall begin by taking a look at the historical background of 
the types of philosophical doctrine to which reference is con- 
stantly made in the books and journals of the day. 



IV. SOME TYPES OF PHILOSOPHICAL 
THEORY 

CHAPTER XII 
THEIR HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 

48. The Doctrine of Representative Perception. — We have 
seen in Chapter II that it seems to the plain man abundantly 
evident that he really is surrounded by material things and that 
he directly perceives such things. This has always been the 
opinion of the plain man and it seems probable that it always 
will be. It is only when he begins to reflect upon things and 
upon his knowledge of them that it occurs to him to call it in 
question. 

Very early in the history of speculative thought it occurred 
to men, however, to ask how it is that we know things, and 
whether we are sure we do know them. The problems of re- 
flection started into Ufe, and various solutions were suggested. 
To tell over the whole list would take us far afield, and we need 
not, for the purpose we have in view, go back farther than Des- 
cartes, with whom philosophy took a relatively new start, and 
may be said to have become, in spirit and method, at least, 
modern. 

I have said (§31) that Descartes (i 596-1650) was fairly 
well acquainted with the functioning of the nervous system, and 
has much to say of the messages which pass along the nerves 
to the brain. The same sort of reasoning that leads the modern 
psychologist to maintain that we know only so much of the exter- 
nal world as is reflected in our sensations led him to maintain 
that the mind is directly aware of the ideas through which an 

165 



1 66 An Introduction to Philosophy 

external world is represented, but can know the world itself 
only indirectly and through these ideas. 

Descartes was put to sore straits to prove the existence of an 
external world, when he had once thus placed it at one remove 
from us. If we accept his doctrine, we seem to be shut up 
within the circle of our ideas, and can find no door that will 
lead us to a world outside. The question will keep coming 
back: How do we know that, corresponding to our ideas, there 
are material things, if we have never perceived, in any single 
instance, a material thing? And the doubt here suggested 
may be reinforced by the reflection that the very expression 
" a material thing " ought to be meaningless to a man who, 
having never had experience of one, is compelled to represent 
it by the aid of something so different from it as ideas are sup- 
posed to be. Can material things really be to such a creature 
anything more than some complex of ideas? 

The difficulties presented by any philosophical doctrine are 
not always evident at once. Descartes made no scruple of 
accepting the existence of an external world, and his example 
has been followed by a very large number of those who agree 
with his initial assumption that the mind knows immediately 
only its own ideas. 

Preeminent among such we must regard John Locke, the 
Enghsh philosopher (1632-1704), whose classic work, "An 
Essay concerning Human Understanding," should not be 
wholly unknown to any one who pretends to an interest in the 
English literature. 

Admirably does Locke represent the position of what very 
many have regarded as the prudent and sensible man, — the 
man who recognizes that ideas are not external things, and that 
things must be known through ideas, and yet holds on to the 
existence of a material world which we assuredly know. 

He recognizes, it is true, that some one may find a possible 
opening for the expression of a doubt, but he regards the doubt 



Their Historical Background 167 

as gratuitous: '' I think nobody can, in earnest, be so skeptical 
as to be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees 
and feels." As we have seen (§ 12), he meets the doubt with 
a jest. 

Nevertheless, those who read with attention Locke's admir- 
ably clear pages must notice that he does not succeed in really 
setting to rest the doubt that has suggested itself. It becomes 
clear that Locke felt so sure of the existence of the external 
world because he now and then slipped into the inconsistent 
doctrine that he perceived it immediately, and not merely through 
his ideas. Are those things " which he sees and feels " exter- 
nal things? Does he see and feel them directly, or must he 
infer from his ideas that he sees and feels them? If the latter, 
why may one not still doubt? Evidently the appeal is to a 
direct experience of material things, and Locke has forgotten 
that he must be a Lockian. 

" I have often remarked, in many instances," writes Des- 
cartes, " that there is a great difference between an object and 
its idea." How could the man possibly have remarked this, 
when he had never in his life perceived the object corresponding 
to any idea, but had been altogether shut up to ideas? " Thus 
I see, whilst I write this," says Locke,^ " I can change the ap- 
pearance of the paper, and by designing the letters tell before- 
hand what new idea it shall exhibit the very next moment, 
by barely drawing my pen over it, which will neither appear 
(let me fancy as much as I will), if my hand stands slill, or though 
I move my pen, if my eyes be shut ; nor, when those characters 
are once made on the paper, can I choose afterward but see them 
as they are ; that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. 
Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport and 
play of my own imagination, when I find that the characters 
that were made at the pleasure of my own thought do not obey 
them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it; but con- 

1 " Essay," Book IV, Chapter XI, § 7. 



1 68 An Introduction to Philosophy 

tinue to affect the senses constantly and regularly, according 
to the figures I made them." 

Locke is as bad as Descartes. Evidently he regards himself 
as able to turn to the external world and perceive the relation 
that things hold to ideas. Such an inconsistency may escape 
the writer who has been guilty of it, but it is not likely to escape 
the notice of all those who come after him. Some one is sure to 
draw the consequences of a doctrine more rigorously, and to 
come to conclusions, it may be, very unpalatable to the man 
who propounded the doctrine in the first instance. 

The type of doctrine represented by Descartes and Locke is 
that of Representative Perception. It holds that we know real 
external things only through their mental representatives. It 
has also been called Hypothetical Realism, because it accepts 
the existence of a real world, but bases our knowledge of it 
upon an inference from our sensations or ideas. 

49. The Step to Idealism. — The admirable clearness with 
which Locke writes makes it the easier for his reader to detect 
the untenabihty of his position. He uses simple language, 
and he never takes refuge in vague and ambiguous phrases. 
When he tells us that the mind is wholly shut up to its ideas, 
and then later assumes that it is not shut up to its ideas, but 
can perceive external things, we see plainly that there must be 
a blunder somewhere. 

George Berkeley (1684-1753), Bishop of Cloyne, followed 
out more rigorously the consequences to be deduced from the 
assumption that all our direct knowledge is of ideas; and in 
a youthful work of the highest genius entitled "The Principles 
of Human Knowledge," he maintained that there is no mate- 
rial world at all. 

When we examine with care the objects of sense, the " things " 
which present themselves to us, he argues, we find that they 
resolve themselves into sensations, or " ideas of sense." What 
can we mean by the word " apple," if we do not mean the group 



Their Historical Background 169 

of experiences in which alone an apple is presented to us? The 
word is nothing else than a name for this group as a group. 
Take away the color, the hardness, the odor, the taste; what 
have we left? And color, hardness, odor, taste, and anything 
else that may be referred to any object as a quality, can exist, 
he claims, only in a perceiving mind; for such things are noth- 
ing else than sensations, and how can there be an unperceived 
sensation? 

The things which we perceive, then, he calls complexes of 
ideas. Have we any reason to believe that these ideas, which 
exist in the mind, are to be accepted as representatives of things 
of a different kind, which are not mental at all ? Not a shadow 
of a reason, says Berkeley ; there is simply no basis for inference 
at all, and we cannot even make clear what it is that we are 
setting out to infer under the name of matter. We need not, 
therefore, grieve over the loss of the material world, for we have 
suffered no loss; one cannot lose what one has never had. 

Thus, the objects of human knowledge, the only things of 
which it means anything to speak, are: (i) Ideas of Sense; 
(2) Ideas of Memory and Imagination; (3) The Passions and 
Operations of the Mind; and (4) The Self that perceives all 
These. 

From Locke's position to that of Berkeley was a bold step, 
and it was much criticised, as well it might be. It was felt 
then, as it has been felt by many down to our own time, that, 
when we discard an external world distinct from our ideas, and 
admit only the world revealed in our ideas, we really do lose. 

It is legitimate to criticise Berkeley, but it is not legitimate 
to misunderstand him; and yet the history of his doctrine may 
almost be called a chronicle of misconceptions. It has been 
assumed that he drew no distinction between real things and 
imaginary things, that he made the world no better than a dream, 
etc. Arbuthnot, Swift, and a host of the greater and lesser 
lights in literature, from his time to ours, have made merry 



170 An Introduction to Philosophy 

over the supposed unrealities in the midst of which the 
Berkeleian must hve. 

But it should be remembered that Berkeley tried hard to do 
full justice to the world of things in which we actually find our- 
selves; not a hypothetical, inferred, unperceived world, but the 
world of the things we actually perceive. He distinguished 
carefully between what is real and what is merely imaginary, 
though he called both " ideas "; and he recognized something 
like a system of nature. And, by the argument from analogy 
which we have already examined (§ 41), he inferred the existence 
of other finite minds and of a Divine Mind. 

But just as John Locke had not completely thought out the 
consequences which might be deduced from his own doctrines, 
so Berkeley left, in his turn, an opening for a successor. It 
was possible for that acutest of analysts, David Hume (171 1- 
1776), to treat him somewhat as he had treated Locke. 

Among the objects of human knowledge Berkeley had in- 
cluded the set] that perceives things. He never succeeded in 
making at all clear what he meant by this object; but he re- 
garded it as a substance, and believed it to be a cause of changes 
in ideas, and quite different in its nature from all the ideas 
attributed to it. But Hume maintained that when he tried to 
get a good look at this self, to catch it, so to speak, and to hold 
it up to inspection, he could not find anything whatever save 
perceptions, memories, and other things of that kind. The 
self is, he said, " but a bundle or collection of different percep- 
tions which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, 
and are in a perpetual flux and movement." 

As for the objects of sense, our own bodies, the chairs upon 
which we sit, the tables at which we write, and all the rest -^ 
these, argues Hume, we are impelled by nature to think of as 
existing continuously; but we have no evidence whatever to 
prove that they do thus exist. Are not the objects of sense, 
after all, only sensations or impressions? Do we not experience 



Their Historical Background 171 

these sensations or impressions interruptedly? Who sees or 
feels a table continuously day after day? If the table is but a 
name for the experiences in question, if we have no right to 
infer material things behind and distinct from such experiences, 
are we not forced to conclude that the existence of the things 
that we see and feel is an interrupted one? 

Hume certainly succeeded in raising more questions than he 
succeeded in answering. We are compelled to admire the won- 
derful clearness and simplicity of his style, and the acuteness 
of his intellect, in every chapter. But we cannot help feeling 
that he does injustice to the world in which we live, even when 
we cannot quite see what is wrong. Does it not seem certain 
to science and to common sense that there is an order of nature 
in some sense independent of our perceptions, so that objects 
may be assumed to exist whether we do or do not perceive 
them? 

When we read Hume we have a sense that we are robbed 
of our real external world; and his account of the mind makes 
us feel as a badly tied sheaf of wheat may be conceived to feel — 
in danger of falling apart at any moment. Berkeley we un- 
hesitatingly call an Idealist, but whether we shall apply the name 
to Hume depends upon the extension we are willing to give 
to it. His world is a world of what we may broadly call ideas; 
but the tendencies of his philosophy have led some to call it 
a Skepticism. 

50. The Revolt of " Common Sense." — Hume's reasonings 
were too important to be ignored, and his conclusions too un- 
palatable to satisfy those who came after him. It seemed 
necessary to seek a way of escape out of this world of mere ideas, 
•which appeared to be so unsatisfactory a world. One of the 
most famous of such attempts was that made by the Scotchman 
Thomas Reid (17 10-1796). 

At one time Reid regarded himself as the disciple of Berkeley, 
but the consequences which Hume deduced from the principles 



172 An Introduction to Philosophy 

laid down by the former led Reid to feel that he must build 
upon some wholly different foundation. He came to the con- 
clusion that the line of philosophers from Descartes to Hume 
had made one capital error in assuming " that nothing is per- 
ceived but what is in the mind that perceives it." 

Once admit, says Reid, that the mind perceives nothing save 
ideas, and we must also admit that it is impossible to prove 
the existence either of an external world or of a mind different 
from " a bundle of perceptions." Hence, Reid maintains that 
we perceive — not infer, but perceive — things external to the 
mind. He writes:^ — 

" Let a man press his hand against the table — he feels it 
hard. But what is the meaning of this? The meaning undoubt- 
edly is, that he hath a certain feehng of touch, from which he 
concludes, without any reasoning, or comparing ideas, that 
there is something external really existing, whose parts stick 
so firmly together that they cannot be displaced without con- 
siderable force. 

"There is here a feeling, and a conclusion drawn from it, 
or some way suggested by it. In order to compare these, we 
must view them separately, and then consider by what tie they 
are connected, and wherein they resemble one another. The 
hardness of the table is the conclusion, the feehng is the medium 
by which we are led to that conclusion. Let a man attend dis- 
tinctly to this medium, and to the conclusion, and he will per- 
ceive them to be as unlike as any two things in nature. The one 
is a sensation of the mind, which can have no existence but in 
a sentient being; nor can it exist one moment longer than it is 
felt; the other is in the table, and we conclude, without any 
difficulty, that it was in the table before it was felt, and continues 
after the feeling is over. The one implies no kind of extension, 
nor parts, nor cohesion; the other implies all these. Both, 
indeed, admit of degrees, and the feeling, beyond a certain 

^ "An Inquiry into the Human Mind," Chapter V, § 5. 



Their Historical Background 173 

degree, is a species of pain; but adamantine hardness does not 
imply the least pain. 

" And as the feeling hath no similitude to hardness, so neither 
can our reason perceive the least tie or connection between them ; 
nor will the logician ever be able to show a reason why we should 
conclude hardness from this feeling, rather than softness, or 
any other quality whatsoever. But, in reality, all mankind 
are led by their constitution to conclude hardness from this 
feeling." 

It is well worth while to read this extract several times, and 
to ask oneself what Reid meant to say, and what he actually 
said.. He is objecting, be it remembered, to the doctrine that 
the mind perceives immediately only its own ideas or sensations 
and must infer all else. His contention is that we perceive 
external things. 

Does he say this? He says that we have feelings of touch 
^rom which we conclude that there is something external; that 
there is a feeling, " and a conclusion drawn from it, or some 
way suggested by it ; " that " the hardness of the table is the 
conclusion, and the feeling is the medium by which we are led 
to the conclusion^ 

Could Descartes or Locke have more plainly supported the 
doctrine of representative perception? How could Reid imag- 
ine he was combatting that doctrine when he wrote thus? The 
point in which he differs from them is this: he maintains that 
we draw the conclusion in question without any reasoning, 
and, indeed, in the absence of any conceivable reason why we 
should draw it. We do it instinctively; we are led by the con- 
stitution of our nature. 

In effect Reid says to us: When you lay your hand on the 
table, you have a sensation, it is true, but you also know the 
table is hard. How do you know it? I cannot tell you; you 
simply know it, and cannot help knowing it; and that is the 
end of the matter. 



174 -^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

Reid's doctrine was not without its effect upon other phi- 
losophers. Among them we must place Sir Wilham Hamilton 
(i 788-1856), whose writings had no little influence upon Brit- 
ish philosophy in the last half of the last century. 

Hamilton complained that Reid did not succeed in being a 
very good Natural Realist, and that he shpped unconsciously 
into the position he was concerned to condemn. Sir William 
tried to ehminate this error, but the careful reader of his works 
will find to his amusement that this learned author gets his 
feet upon the same slippery descent. And much the same thing 
may be said of the doctrine of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), 
who claims that, when we have a sensation, we know directly 
that there is an external thing, and then manages to subHmate 
that external thing into an Unknowable, which we not only 
do not know directly, but even do not know at all. 

All of these men were anxious to avoid what they regarded as 
the perils of Idealism, and yet they seem quite unable to retain 
a foothold upon the position which they consider the safer one. 

Reid called his doctrine the philosophy of " Common Sense," 
and he thought he was coming back from the subtleties of the 
metaphysicians to the standpoint of the plain man. That he 
should fall into difficulties and inconsistencies is by no means 
surprising. As we have seen (§ 12), the thought of the plain 
man is far from clear. He certainly believes that we perceive 
an external world of things, and the inconsistent way in which 
Descartes and Locke appeal from ideas to the things themselves 
does not strike him as unnatural. Why should not a man test 
his ideas by turning to things and comparing the former with 
the latter? On the other hand, he knows that to perceive things 
we must have sense organs and sensations, and he cannot 
quarrel with the psychologists for saying that we know things 
only in so far as they are revealed to us through our sensations. 
How does he reconcile these two positions? He does not recon- 
cile them. He accepts them as they stand. 



Their Historical Background 175 

Reid and various other philosophers have tried to come 
back to " Common Sense " and to stay there. Now, it is a good 
position to come back to for the purpose of starting out again. 
The experience of the plain man, the truths which he recognizes 
as truths, these are not things to be despised. Many a man 
whose mind has been, as Berkeley expresses it, " debauched 
by learning," has gotten away from them to his detriment, and 
has said very unreasonable things. But " Common Sense " 
cannot be the ultimate refuge of the philosopher; it can only 
serve him as material for investigation. The scholar whose 
thought is as vague and inconsistent as that of the plain man 
has little profit in the fact that the apparatus of his learning 
has made it possible for him to be ponderously and unintel- 
ligibly vague and inconsistent. 

Hence, we may have the utmost sympathy with Reid's pro- 
test against the doctrine of representative perception, and we 
may, nevertheless, complain that he has done little to explain 
how it is that we directly know external things and yet cannot 
be said to know things except in so far as we have sensations 
or ideas. 

51. The Critical Philosophy. — The German philosopher, 
Immanuel Kant (i 724-1804), was moved, by the skeptical 
conclusions to which Hume's philosophy seemed to lead, to 
seek a way of escape, somewhat as Reid was. But he did not 
take refuge in " Common Sense " ; he developed an ingenious 
doctrine which has had an enormous influence in the philosophi- 
cal world, and has given rise to a Kantian Hterature of such 
proportions that no man can hope to read all of it, even if he 
devotes his life to it. In Germany and out of it, it has for a hun- 
dred years and more simply rained books, pamphlets, and 
articles on Kant and his philosophy, some of them good, many 
of them far from clear and far from original. Hundreds of 
German university students have taken Kant as the subject of 
the dissertation by which they hoped to win the degree of 



176 An hitroduction to Philosophy 

Doctor of Philosophy ; — I was lately offered two hundred and 
seventy- four such dissertations in one bunch ; — and no student 
is supposed to have even a moderate knowledge of philosophy 
who has not an acquaintance with that famous work, the 
"Critique of Pure Reason." 

It is to be expected from the outset that, where so many have 
found so much to say, there should reign abundant differences 
of opinion. There are differences of opinion touching the 
interpretation of Kant, and touching the criticisms which may 
be made upon, and the development which should be given to, 
his doctrine. It is, of course, impossible to go into all these 
things here; and I shall do no more than indicate, in untech- 
nical language and in briefest outline, what he offers us in place 
of the philosophy of Hume. 

Kant did not try to refute, as did Reid, the doctrine, urged 
by Descartes and by his successors, that all those things which 
the mind directly perceives are to be regarded as complexes 
of ideas. On the contrary, he accepted it, and he has made the 
words " phenomenon " and " noumenon " household words 
in philosophy. 

The world which seems to be spread out before us in space 
and time is, he tells us, a world of things as they are revealed 
to our senses and our intelligence; it is a world of manifestations, 
of phenomena. What things-in-themselves are like we have 
no means of knowing; we know only things as they appear to 
us. We may, to be sure, talk of a something distinct from phe- 
nomena, a something not revealed to the senses, but thought 
of, a noumenon; but we should not forget that this is a negative 
conception; there is nothing in our experience that can give 
it a filling, for our experience is only of phenomena. The 
reader will find an unmistakable echo of this doctrine in Her- 
bert Spencer's doctrine of the " Unknowable " and its " mani- 
festations." 

Now, Berkeley had called all the things we immediately per- 



Their Historical Background 177 

ceive ideas. As we have seen, he distinguished between " ideas 
of sense " and " ideas of memory and imagination." Hume 
preferred to give to these two classes different names — he called 
the first impressions and the second ideas. 

The associations of the word " impression " are not to be 
mistaken. Locke had taught that between ideas in the memory 
and genuine sensations there is the difference that the latter 
are due to the " brisk acting " of objects without us. Objects 
impress us, and we have sensations or impressions. To be 
sure, Hume, after employing the word " impression," goes on 
to argue that we have no evidence that there are external objects 
which cause impressions. But he retains the word " impres- 
sion," nevertheless, and his use of it perceptibly colors his 
thought. 

In Kant's distinction between ■ phenomena and noumena we 
have the Hneal descendant of the old distinction between the 
circle of our ideas and the something outside of them that causes 
them and of which they are supposed to give information. 
Hume said we have no reason to believe such a thing exists, but 
are impelled by our nature to believe in it. Kant is not so 
much concerned to prove the nonexistence of noumena, things- 
in-themselves, as he is to prove that the very conception is an 
empty one. His reasonings seem to result in the conclusion 
that we can make no intelligible statement about things so 
cut off from our experience as noumena are supposed to be ; 
and one would imagine that he would have felt impelled to go 
on to the frank declaration that we have no reason to believe 
in noumena at all, and had better throw away altogether so 
meaningless and useless a notion. But he was a conservative 
creature, and he did not go quite so far. 

So far there is Httle choice between Kant and Hume. Cer- 
tainly the former does not appear to have rehabihtated the 
external world which had suffered from the assaults of his 
predecessors. What important difference is there between his 



178 An Introduction to Philosophy 

doctrine and that of the man whose skeptical tendencies he 
wished to combat ? 

The difference is this: Descartes and Locke had accounted 
for our knowledge of things by maintaining that things act upon 
us, and make an impression or sensation — that their action, 
so to speak, begets ideas. This is a very ancient doctrine as 
well as a very modern one ; it is the doctrine that most men find 
reasonable even before they devote themselves to the study 
of philosophy. The totality of such impressions received from 
the external world, they are accustomed to regard as our ex- 
perience of external things; and they are inclined to think that 
any knowledge of external things not founded upon experience 
can hardly deserve the name of knowledge. 

Now, Hume, when he cast doubt upon the existence of ex- 
ternal things, did not, as I have said above, divest himself of 
the suggestions of the word " impression." He insists strenu- 
ously that all our knowledge is founded upon experience; and 
he holds that no experience can give us knowledge that is neces- 
sary and universal. We know things as they are revealed to 
us in our experience; but who can guarantee that we may not 
have new experiences of a quite different kind, and which flatly 
contradict the notions which we have so far attained of what 
is possible and impossible, true and untrue. 

It is here that Kant takes issue with Hume. A survey of 
our knowledge makes clear, he thinks, that we are in the posses- 
sion of a great deal of information that is not of the unsatis- 
factory kind that, according to Hume, all our knowledge of 
things must be. There, for example, are all the truths of 
mathematics. When we enunciate a truth regarding the rela- 
tions of the lines and angles of a triangle, we are not merely un- 
folding in the predicate of our proposition what was implicitly 
contained in the subject. There are propositions that do no 
more than this; they are analytical, i.e. they merely analyze 
the subject. Thus, when we say: Man is a rational animal, 



Their Historical Background ' 79 

we may merely be defining the word " man " — unpacking it, 
so to speak. But a synthetic judgment is one in which the predi- 
cate is not contained in the subject; it adds to one's information. 
The mathematical truths are of this character. So also is the 
truth that everything that happens must have a cause. 

Do we connect things with one another in this way merely 
because we have had experience that they are thus connected? 
Is it because they are given to us connected in this way? That 
cannot be the case, Kant argues, for what is taken up as mere 
experienced act cannot be known as universally and neces- 
sarily true. We perceive that these things must be so connected. 
How shall we explain this necessity? 

We can only explain it, said Kant, in this way: We must 
assume that what is given us from without is merely the raw 
material of sensation, the matter of our experience; and that 
the ordering of this matter, the arranging it into a world of 
phenomena, the furnishing of jorm, is the work of the mind. 
Thus, we must think of space, time, causality, and of all other 
relations which obtain between the elements of our experience, 
as due to the nature of the mind. It perceives the world of 
phenomena that it does, because it constructs that world. Its 
knowledge of things is stable and dependable because it cannot 
know any phenomenon which does not conform to its laws. 
The water poured into a cup must take the shape of the cup ; 
and the raw materials poured into a mind must take the form 
of an orderly world, spread out in space and ime. 

Kant thought that with this turn he had placed human knowl- 
edge upon a satisfactory basis, and had, at the same time, in- 
dicated the limitations of human knowledge. If the world we 
perceive is a world which we make; if the forms of thought 
furnished by the mind have no other function than the ordering 
of the materials furnished by sense; then what can we say of 
that which may be beyond phenomena ? What of noumena ? 

It seems clear that, on Kant's principles, we ought not to be 



i8o A71 hitroduction to Philosophy 

able to say anything whatever of noumena. To say that such 
may exist appears absurd. All conceivable connection between 
them and existing things as we know them is cut off. We cannot 
think of a noumenon as a substance, for the notions of substance 
and quality have been declared to be only a scheme for the order- 
ing of phenomena. Nor can we think of one as a cause of the 
sensations that we unite into a world, for just the same reason. 
We are shut up logically to the world of phenomena, and that 
world of phenomena is, after all, the successor of the world of 
ideas advocated by Berkeley. 

This is not the place to discuss at length the value of Kant's 
contribution to philosophy.^ There is something terrifying 
in the prodigious length at which it seems possible for men to 
discuss it. Kant called his doctrine " Criticism," because it 
undertook to estabHsh the nature and limits of our knowledge. 
By some he has been hailed as a great enlightener, and by others 
he has been accused of being as dogmatic in his assumptions 
as those whom he disapproved. 

But one thing he certainly has accomplished. He has made 
the words " phenomena " and " noumena " familiar to us all, 
and he has induced a vast number of men to accept it as estab- 
lished fact that it is not worth while to try to extend our knowl- 
edge beyond phenomena. One sees his influence in the writings 
of men who differ most widely from one another. 

^ The reader will find a criticism of the Critical Philosophy in Chapter XV. 



CHAPTER XIII 
REALISM AND IDEALISM 

52. Realism. — The plain man is a realist. That is to saj<^, 
he beUejvesin a world which is not to be identified with his own 
ideas or those of any other mind. At the same time, as we have 
seen (§ 12), the distinction between the mind and the world is 
by no means clear to him. It is not difficult, by judicious ques- 
tioning, to set his feet upon the slippery descent that shoots a 
man into ideahsm. 

The vague realism of the plain man may be called Naive 
or Unreflective Realism. It has been called by some Natural 
Realism, but the latter term is an unfortunate one. It is, of 
course, natural for the unreflective man to be unreflective, but, 
on the other hand, it is also natural for the reflective man to 
be reflective. Besides, in dubbing any doctrine " natural," 
we are apt to assume that doctrines contrasted with it may 
properly be called " unnatural " or " artificial." It is an an- 
cient rhetorical device, to obtain sympathy for a cause in which 
one may happen to be interested by giving it a taking name; 
but it is a device frowned upon by logic and by good sense. 

One kind of reahsm is, then, naive realism. It is the posi- 
tion from which we all set out, when we begin to reflect upon 
the system of things. It is the position to which some try to 
come back, when their reflections appear to be leading them 
into strange or unwelcome paths. 

We have seen how Thomas Reid (§ 50) recoiled from the con- 
clusions to which the reasonings of the philosophers had brought 
him, and tried to return to the position of the plain man. The 
attempt was a failure, and was necessarily a failure, for Reid 



1 82 A71 Introductio7i to Philosophy 

tried to come back to the position of the plain man and still 
he a philosopher. He tried to Hve in a cloud and, nevertheless, 
to see clearly — a task not easy to accomplish. 

It should be remarked, however, that he tried, at least, to 
insist that we know the external world directly. We may divide 
realists into two broad classes, those who hold to this view, and 
those who maintain that we know it only indirectly and through 
our ideas. 

The plain man belongs, of course, to the first class, if it is just 
to speak of a man who says inconsistent things as being wholly 
in any one class. Certainly he is willing to assert that the ground 
upon which he stands and the staff in his hand are perceived 
by him directly. 

But we are compelled to recognize that there are subdivisions 
in this first class of realists. Reid tried to place himself beside 
the plain man and failed to do so. Hamilton (§50) tried also, 
and he is not to be classed precisely either with the plain man 
or with Reid. He informs us that the object as it appears to 
us is a composite something to the building up of which the 
knowing mind contributes its share, the medium through which 
the object is perceived its share, and the object in itself its share. 
He suggests, by way of illustration, that the external object may 
contribute one third. This seems to make, at least, something 
external directly known. But, on the other hand, he main- 
tains that the mind knows immediately only what is in immediate 
contact with the bodily organ — with the eyes, with the hands, 
etc.; and he believes it knows this immediately because it is 
actually present in all parts of the body. And, further, in 
distinguishing as he does betv/een existence " as it is in itself " 
and existence "as it is revealed to us," and in shutting us up 
to the latter, he seems to rob us even of the modicum of 
externality that he has granted us. 

I have already mentioned Herbert Spencer (§ 50) as a man 
not without sympathy for the attempt to rehabilitate the external 



Realism and Idealism 183 

world. He is very severe with the " insanities " of ideahsm. 
He is not wilhng even to take the first step toward it. 

He writes: ^ " The postulate with which metaphysical reason- 
ing sets out is that we are primarily conscious only of our sen- 
sations — that we certainly know we have these, and that if 
there be anything beyond these serving as cause for them, it 
can be known only by inference from them. 

" I shall give much surprise to the metaphysical reader if I 
call in question this postulate; and the surprise will rise into 
astonishment if I distinctly deny it. Yet I must do this. Limit- 
ing the proposition to those epiperipheral feelings produced in 
us by external objects (for these are alone in question), I see no 
alternative but to affirm that the thing primarily known is not 
that a sensation has been experienced, but that there exists an 
outer object." 

According to this, the outer object is not known through an 
inference; it is known directly. But do not be in haste to class 
Spencer with the plain man, or with Reid. Listen to a citation 
once before made (§22), but worth repeating in this connection: 
" When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us 
as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can 
know only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by 
the relativity of thought, compelled to think of these in relation 
to a cause — the notion of a real existence which generated 
these impressions becomes nascent. If it be proved that every 
notion of a real existence which we can frame is inconsistent 
with itself, — that matter, however conceived by us, cannot be 
matter as it actually is, — our conception, though transfigured, 
is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated 
as far as possible from those special forms under which it was 
before represented in thought." 

It is interesting to place the two extracts side by side. In 
the one, we are told that we do not know external objects by 

1 " Principles of Psychology," Part VII, Chapter VI, § 404. 



184 An Introduction to Philosophy 

an inference from our sensations; in the other we are taught 
that the piece of matter which we regard as existing externally 
cannot be really known; that we can know only certain impres- 
sions produced on us, and must refer them to a cause; that this 
cause cannot be what we think it. It is dif&cult for the man 
who reads such statements not to forget that Spencer regarded 
himself as a realist who held to a direct knowledge of something 
external. 

There are, as it is evident, many sorts of realists that may 
be gathered into the first class mentioned above — men who, 
however inconsistent they may be, try, at least, to maintain that 
our knowledge of the external world is a direct one. And it is 
equally true that there are various sorts of realists that may 
be put into the second class. 

These men have been called Hypothetical Realists. In the last 
chapter it was pointed out that Descartes and Locke belong to 
this class. Both of these men believed in an external world, 
but beheved that its existence is a thing to be inferred. 

Now, when a man has persuaded himself that the mind can 
know directly only its own ideas, and must infer the world which 
they are supposed to represent, he may conceive of that external 
world in three different ways. 

(i) He may believe that what corresponds to his idea of a 
material object, for example^ an apple, is in very many respects 
Hke the idea in his mind. Thus, he may believe that the odor, 
taste, color, hardness, etc., that he perceives directly, or as ideas, 
have corresponding to them real external odor, taste, color, 
hardness, etc. It is not easy for a man to hold to this position, 
for a very little reflection seems to make it untenable; but it 
is theoretically possible for one to take it, and probably many 
persons have inclined to the view when they have first been 
tempted to believe that the mind perceives directly only its 
ideas. 

(2) He may believe that such things as colors, tastes, and odors 



Realism mtd Idealism 185 

cannot be qualities of external bodies at all, but are only effects, 
produced upon our minds by something very different in kind. 
We seem to perceive bodies, he may argue, to be colored, to 
have taste, and to be odorous; but what we thus perceive is not 
the external thing; the external thing that produces these ap- 
pearances cannot be regarded as having anything more than 
" solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number," 
Thus did Locke reason. To him the external world as it really 
exists, is, so to speak, a paler copy of the external world as we 
seem to perceive it. It is a world with fewer qualities, but, still, 
a world with qualities of some kind. 

(3) But one may go farther than this. One may say: How 
can I know that even the extension, number, and motion of 
the things which I directly perceive have corresponding to them 
extension, number, and motion, in an outer world? If what 
is not colored can cause me to perceive color, why may not that 
which is not extended cause me to perceive extension? And, 
moved by such reflections, one may maintain that there exists 
outside of us that which we can only characterize as an Un- 
known Cause, a Reality which we cannot more nearly define. 

This last position resembles very closely one side of Spencer's 
doctrine — that represented in the last of the two citations, as 
the reader can easily see. It is the position of the follower of 
Immanuel Kant who has not yet repudiated the noumenon or 
thing-in-itself discussed in the last chapter (§ 51). 

I am not concerned to defend any one of the varieties of 
Direct or of Hypothetical Realism portrayed above. But I 
wish to point out that they all have some sort of claim to the 
title Realism, and to remind the reader that, when we call a 
man a realist, we do not do very much in the way of defining 
his position. I may add that the account of the external world 
contained in Chapter IV is a sort of realism also. 

If this last variety, which I advocate, must be classified, let 
it be placed in the first broad class, for it teaches that we know 



1 86 An Introduction to Philosophy 

the external world directly. But I sincerely hope that it will not 
be judged wholly by the company it keeps, and that no one will 
assign to it either virtues or defects to which it can lay no just 
claim. 

Before leaving the subject of reahsm it is right that I should 
utter a note of warning touching one very common source of 
error. It is fatally easy for men to be misled by the names 
which are appHed to things. Sir Wilham Hamilton invented 
for a certain type of metaphysical doctrine the offensive epithet 
" nihilism," It is a type which appeals to many inoffensive 
and pious men at the present day, some of whom prefer to call 
themselves idealists. Many have been induced to become 
" free-willists " because the name has suggested to them a 
proper regard for that freedom which is justly dear to all men. 
We can scarcely approach with an open mind an account of 
ideas and sensations which we hear described as " sensational- 
ism," or worse yet, as " sensualism." When a given type of 
philosophy is set down as " dogmatism," we involuntarily feel 
a prejudice against it. 

He who reads as reflectively as he should will soon find out 
that philosophers " call names " much as other men do, and that 
one should always be on one's guard. " Every form of phe- 
nomenalism," asseverated a learned and energetic old gentle- 
man, who for many years occupied a chair in one of our leading 
institutions of learning, " necessarily leads to atheism." He 
inspired a considerable number of students with such a horror 
for " phenomenalism " that they never took pains to find out 
what it was. 

I mention these things in this connection, because I suspect 
that not a few in our own day are unduly influenced by the asso- 
ciations which cling to the words " realism " and " idealism." 
Realism in literature, as many persons understand it, means 
the degradation of literature to the portrayal of what is coarse 
and degrading, in a coarse and offensive way. Reahsm in 



Realism and Idealism 187 

painting often means the laborious representation upon canvas 
of things from which we would gladly avert our eyes if we met 
them in real hfe. With the word " idealism," on the other hand, 
we are apt to connect the possession of ideals, a regard for what 
is best and noblest in life and literature. 

The reader must have seen that realism in the philosophic 
sense of the word has nothing whatever to do with realism in 
the senses just mentioned. The word is given a special mean- 
ing, and it is a weakness to allow associations drawn from other 
senses of the word to color our judgment when we use it. 

And it should be carefully held in view that the word " ideal- 
ism " is given a special sense when it is used to indicate a type 
of doctrine contrasted with the doctrine of the realist. Some 
forms of philosophical idealism have undoubtedly been inspiring; 
but some have been, and are, far from inspiring. They should 
not be allowed to posture as saints merely because they are 
cloaked with an ambiguous name. 

53. Idealism. — Idealism we may broadly define as the doc- 
trine that all existence is mental existence. So far from regard- 
ing the external world as beyond and independent of mind, it 
maintains that it can have its being only in consciousness. 

We have seen (§ 49) how men were led to take the step to 
idealism. It is not a step which the plain man is impelled to 
take without preparation. To say that the real world of things 
in which we perceive ourselves to live and move is a something 
that exists only in the mind strikes him as little better than in- 
sane. He who becomes an idealist usually does so, I think, 
after weighing the arguments presented by the hypothetical 
realist, and finding that they seem to carry one farther than the 
latter appears to recognize. 

The type of idealism represented by Berkeley has been called 
Subjective Idealism. Ordinarily our use of the words " sub- 
jective " and " objective " is to call attention to the distinction 
between what belongs to the mind and what belongs to the 



1 88 An Introduction to Philosophy 

external order of things. My sensations are subjective, they are 
referred to my mind, and it is assumed that they can have no 
existence except in my mind; the quahties of things are regarded 
as objective, that is, it is commonly believed that they exist 
independently of my perception of them. 

Of course, when a man becomes an idealist, he cannot keep 
just this distinction. The question may, then, fairly be raised : 
How can he be a subjective idealist ? Has not the word " sub- 
jective " lost its significance? 

To this one has to answer: It has, and it has not. The man 
who, with strict consistency, makes the desk at which he sits 
as much his " idea " as is the pain in his finger or his memory 
of yesterday, cannot keep hold of the distinction of subjective 
and objective. But men are not always as consistent as this. 
Remember the illustration of the " telephone exchange " 
(§ 14). The mind is represented as situated at the brain ter- 
minals of the sensory nerves; and then brain, nerves, and all 
else are turned into ideas in this mind, which are merely " pro- 
jected outwards." 

Now, in placing the mind at a definite location in the world, 
and contrasting it with the world, we retain the distinction 
between subjective and objective — what is in the mind can be 
distinguished from what is beyond it. On the other hand, in 
making the whole system of external things a complex of ideas 
in the mind, we become idealists, and repudiate realism. The 
position is an inconsistent one, of course, but it is possible for 
men to take it, for men have taken it often enough. 

The idealism of Professor Pearson (§ 14) is more palpably 
subjective than that of Berkeley, for the latter never puts the 
mind in a " telephone exchange." Nevertheless, he names the 
objects of sense, which other men call material things, " ideas, " 
and he evidently assimilates them to what we commonly call 
ideas and contrast with things. Moreover, he holds them in 
some of the contempt which men reserve for " mere ideas," 



Realism and Idealism 189 

for he believes that idolaters might be induced to give over 
worshiping the heavenly bodies could they be persuaded that 
these are nothing more than their own ideas. 

With the various forms of subjective ideahsm it is usual to 
contrast the doctrine of Objective Idealism. This does not 
maintain that the world which I perceive is my " idea " ; it 
maintains that the world is " idea." 

It is rather a nice question, and one which no man should 
decide without a careful examination of the whole matter, 
whether we have any right to retain the word " idea " when we 
have rubbed out the distinction which is usually drawn between 
ideas and external things. If we maintain that all men are 
always necessarily selfish, we stretch the meaning of the word 
quite beyond what is customary, and selfishness becomes a 
thing we have no reason to disapprove, since it characterizes 
saint and sinner ahke. Similarly, if we decide to name " idea," 
not only what the plain man and the reahst admit to have a 
right to that name, but also the great system which these men 
call an external material world, it seems right to ask: Why use 
the word " idea " at all ? What does it serve to indicate? Not 
a distinction, surely, for the word seems to be appHcable to all 
things without distinction. 

Such considerations as these lead me to object to the expression 
"objective idealism": if the doctrine is really objective, i.e. 
if it recognizes a system of things different and distinct from 
what men commonly call ideas, it scarcely seems to have a 
right to the title idealism; and if it is really idealism, and does 
not rob the word idea of all significance, it can scarcely be 
objective in any proper sense of the word. 

Manifestly, there is need of a very careful analysis of the mean- 
ing of the word "idea," and of the proper significance of the 
terms " subjective " and "objective," if error is to be avoided 
and language used soberly and accurately. Those who are 
not in sympathy with the doctrine of the objective ideahsts 



igo An Introduction to Philosophy 

think that in such careful analysis and accurate statement they 
are rather conspicuously lacking. 

We think of Hegel (i77c»-i83i) as the typical objective 
idealist. It is not easy to give an accurate account of his doc- 
trine, for he is far from a clear writer, and he has made it pos- 
sible for his many admirers to understand him in many ways. 
But he seems to have accepted the system of things that most 
men call the real external world, and to have regarded it as 
the Divine Reason in its self-development. And most of those 
whom we would to-day be inchned to gather together under the 
title of objective idealists appear to have been much influenced, 
directly or indirectly, by his philosophy. There are, however, 
great differences of opinion among them, and no man should 
be made responsible for the opinions of the class as a class. 

I have said a few pages back that some forms of ideahsm 
are inspiring, and that some are not. 

Bishop Berkeley called the objects of sense ideas. He re- 
garded all ideas as inactive, and thought that all changes in 
ideas — and this includes all the changes that take place in nature 
— must be referred to the activity of minds. Some of those 
changes he could refer to finite minds, his own and others. 
Most of them he could not, and he felt impelled to refer them to 
a Divine Mind. Hence, the world became to him a constant 
revelation of God; and he uses the word " God " in no equivocal 
sense. It does not signify to him the system of things as a whole, 
or an Unknowable, or anything of the sort. It signifies a spirit 
akin to his own, but without its limitations. He writes : ^ — 

" A human spirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not 
being an idea; when, therefore, we see the color, size, figure, 
and motions of a man, we perceive only certain sensations or 
ideas excited in our own minds; and these being exhibited to 
our view in sundry distinct collections serve to mark out unto 
us the existence of finite and created spirits Kke ourselves. 

1 "Principles," § 148. 



Realism and Idealism 191 

Hence, it is plain we do not see a man, — if by man is meant 
that which lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do, — but 
only such a certain collection of ideas as directs us to think 
there is a distinct principle of thought and motion, like to our- 
selves, accompanying and represented by it. And after the 
same manner we see God; all the difference is that, whereas 
some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas denotes a par- 
ticular human mind, whithersoever we direct our view, we do 
at all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of the 
Divinity — everything we see, hear, feel, or any wise perceive by 
sense, being a sign or effect of the power of God; as is our per- 
ception of those very motions which are produced by men." 

With Berkeley's view of the world as a constant revelation 
of God, many men will sympathize who have little liking for 
his idealism as idealism. They may criticise in detail his argu- 
ments to prove the nonexistence of a genuinely external world, 
but they will be ready to admit that his doctrine is an inspiring 
one in the view that it takes of the world and of man. 

With this I wish to contrast the doctrine of another ideaHst, 
Mr. Bradley, whose work, " Appearance and Reahty, " has 
been much discussed in the last few years, in order that the reader 
may see how widely different forms of ideahsm may differ from 
each other, and how absurd it is to praise or blame a man's 
philosophy merely on the ground that it is ideaHstic. 

Mr. Bradley holds that those aspects of our experience which 
we are accustomed to regard as real — qualities of things, the 
relations between things, the things themselves, space, time, 
motion, causation, activity, the self — turn out when carefully 
examined to be self-contradictory and absurd. They are not 
real; they are unrealities, mere appearances. 

But these appearances exist, and, hence, must belong to 
reality. This reality must be sentient, for " there is no being 
or fact outside of that which is commonly called psychical 
existence." 



192 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Now, what is this reality with which appearances — the 
whole world of things which seem to be given in our experience 
— are contrasted? Mr. Bradley calls it the Absolute, and in- 
dicates that it is what other men recognize as the Deity. How 
shall we conceive it? 

We are told that we are to conceive it as consisting of the con- 
tents of finite minds, or " centers of experience," subjected to 
" an all-pervasive transfusion with a reblending of all material." 
In the Absolute, finite things are " transmuted " and lose 
" their individual natures." 

What does this mean in plain language? It means that there 
are many finite minds of a higher and of a lower order, " centers 
of experience," and that the contents of these are unreal appear- 
ances. There is not a God or Absolute outside of and distinct 
from these, but rather one that in some sense is their reality. 
This mass of unrealities transfused and transmuted so that no 
one of them retains its individual nature is the Absolute. That 
is to say, time must become indistinguishable from space, space 
from motion, motion from the self, the self from the qualities 
of things, etc., before they are fit to become constituents of the 
Absolute and to be regarded as real. 

As the reader has seen, this Absolute has nothing in common 
with the God in which Berkeley believed, and in which the plain 
man usually beheves. It is the night in which all cats are gray, 
and there appears to be no reason why any one should harbor 
toward it the least sentiment of awe or veneration. 

Whether such reasonings as Mr. Bradley's should be accepted 
as valid or should not, must be decided after a careful examina- 
tion into the foundations upon which they rest and the consist- 
ency with which inferences are drawn from premises. I do 
not wish to prejudge the matter. But it is worth while to set 
forth the conclusions at which he arrives, that it may be clearly 
realized that the associations which often hang about the word 
" ideahsm " should be carefully stripped away when we are 
forming our estimate of this or that philosophical doctrine. 



CHAPTER XIV 
MONISM AND DUALISM 

54. The Meaning of the Words. — In common life men dis- 
tinguish between minds and material things, thus dividing the 
things, which taken together make up the world as we know it, 
into two broad classes. They think of minds as being very 
different from material objects, and of the latter as being very 
different from minds. It does not occur to them to find in the 
one class room for the other, nor does it occur to them to think 
of both classes as "manifestations" or "aspects" of some one 
"underlying reality." In other words, the plain man to-day 
is a Dualist. 

In the last chapter (§ 52) I have called him a Naive Reahst; 
and here I shall call him a Naive Dualist, for a man may 
regard mind and matter as quite distinct kinds of things, with- 
out trying to elevate his opinion, through reflection, into a philo- 
sophical doctrine. The reflective man may stand by the opinion 
of the plain man, merely trying to make less vague and indefinite 
the notions of matter and of mind. He then becomes a Philo- 
sophical Dualist. There are several varieties of this doctrine, 
and I shall consider them a little later (§ 58). 

But it is possible for one to be less profoundly impressed by 
the differences which characterize matter and mind. One may 
feel inclined to refer mental phenomena to matter, and to deny 
them the prominence accorded them by the duahst. On the 
other hand, one may be led by one's reflections to resolve material 
objects into mere ideas, and to claim that they can have no 
existence except in a mind. Finally, it is possible to hold that 
both minds and material things, as we know them, are only 
o 193 



194 -^^ hitroduction to Philosophy 

manifestations, phenomena, and that they must be referred to 
an ulterior "reahty" or "substance." One may claim that they 
are " aspects " of the one reality, which is neither matter nor mind. 

These doctrines are different forms of Monism. In what- 
ever else they differ from one another, they agree in main- 
taining that the universe does not contain two kinds of things 
fundamentally different. Out of the duality of things as it 
seems to be revealed to the plain man they try to make some 
kind of a unity. 

55. Materialism. — The first of the forms of monism above 
mentioned is Materialism. It is not a doctrine to which the first 
impulse of the plain man leads him at the present time. Even 
those who have done no reading in philosophy have inherited 
many of their ways of looking at things from the thinkers who 
lived in the ages past, and whose opinions have become the 
common property of civilized men. For more than two thou- 
sand years the world and the mind have been discussed, and it 
is impossible for any of us to escape from the influence of those 
discussions and to look at things with the primitive simplicity 
of the wholly untutored. 

But it was not always so. There was a time when men who 
were not savages, but possessed great intellectual vigor and 
much cultivation, found it easy and natural to be materialists. 
This I have spoken of before (§ 30), but it will repay us to take 
up again a little more at length the clearest of the ancient forms 
of materialism, that of the Atomists, and to see what may be 
said for and against it. 

Democritus of Abdera taught that nothing exists except atoms 
and empty space. The atoms, he maintained, differ from one 
another in size, shape, and position. In other respects they are 
alike. They have always been in motion. Perhaps he conceived 
of that motion as originally a fall through space, but there seems 
to be uncertainty upon this point. However, the atoms in 
motion collide with one another, and these collisions result in 



Monism and Dtialism 195 

mechanical combinations from which spring into being world- 
systems. 

According to this doctrine, nothing comes from nothing, and 
nothing can become nonexistent. All the changes which have 
ever taken place in the world are only changes in the position 
of material particles — they are regroupings of atoms. We 
cannot directly perceive them to be such, for our senses are too 
dull to make such fine observations, but our reason tells us that 
such is the case. 

Where, in such a world as this, is there room for mind, and 
what can we mean by mind? Democritus finds a place for 
mind by conceiving it to consist of fine, smooth, round atoms, 
which are the same as the atoms which constitute fire. These 
are distributed through the whole body, and lie among the other 
atoms which compose it. They are inhaled with and exhaled 
into the outer air. While they are in the body their functions 
are different according as they are located in this organ or in 
that. In the brain they give rise to thought, in the heart to anger, 
and in the liver to desire. 

I suppose no one would care, at the present time, to become 
a Democritean. The "Reason," which tells us that the mind 
consists of fine, round atoms, appears to have nothing but its 
bare word to offer us. But, apart from this, a pecuHar difficulty 
seems to face us; even supposing there are atoms of fire in the 
brain, the heart, and the liver, what are the thought, anger, and 
desire, of which mention is made? 

Shall we conceive of these last as atoms, as void space, or 
as the motion of atoms? There really seems to be no place in 
the world for them, and these are the mind so jar as the mind 
appears to he revealed — they are mental phenomena. It does 
not seem that they are to be identified with anything that the 
Atomistic doctrine admits as existing. They are simply over- 
looked. 

Is the modern materialism more satisfactory? About half 



196 An Introduction to Philosophy 

a century ago there was in the scientific world something like 
a revival of materiaHstic thinking. It did not occur to any one 
to maintain that the mind consists of fine atoms disseminated 
through the body, but statements almost as crude were made. 
It was said, for example, that the brain secretes thought as the 
liver secretes bile. 

It seems a gratuitous labor to criticise such statements as 
these in detail. There are no glands the secretions of which are 
not as unequivocally material as are the glands themselves. 
This means that such secretions can be captured and analyzed; 
the chemical elements of which they are composed can be enu- 
merated. They are open to inspection in precisely the same way 
as are the glands which secrete them. 

Does it seem reasonable to maintain that thoughts and feel- 
ings are related to brains in this way? Does the chemist ever 
dream of collecting them in a test tube, and of drawing up for 
us a list of their constituent elements? When the brain is active, 
there are, to be sure, certain material products which pass into 
the blood and are finally eliminated from the body; but among 
these products no one would be more surprised than the mate- 
rialist to discover pains and pleasures, memories and antici- 
pations, desires and volitions. This talk of thought as a 
"secretion" we can afford to set aside. 

Nor need we take much more seriously the seemingly more 
sober statement that thought is a "function" of the brain. 
There is, of course, a sense in which we all admit the statement; 
minds are not disembodied, and we have reason to believe that 
mind and brain are most intimately related. But the word 
"function" is used in a very broad and loose sense when it 
serves to indicate this relation; and one may employ it in this 
way without being a materiaHst at all. In a stricter sense of 
the word, the brain has no functions that may not be conceived 
as mechanical changes, — as the motion of atoms in space, — 
and to identify mental phenomena with these is inexcusable. 



Monism and Dualism 197 

It is not theoretically inconceivable that, with finer senses, 
we might directly perceive the motions of the atoms in another 
man's brain; it is inconceivable that we should thus directly 
perceive his melancholy or his joy; they belong to another 
world. 

56. Spiritualism. — The name Sfiritualism is sometimes 
given to the doctrine that there is no existence which we may 
not properly call mind or spirit. It errs in the one direction as 
materialism errs in the other. 

One must not confound with this doctrine that very different 
one, Spiritism, which teaches that a certain favored class of 
persons called mediums may bring back the spirits of the de- 
parted and enable us to hold communication with them. Such 
behefs have always existed among the common people, but 
they have rarely interested philosophers. I shall have nothing 
to say of them in this book. 

There have been various kinds of spiritualists. The name 
may be applied to the idealists, from Berkeley down to those of 
our day; at some of the varieties of their doctrine we have 
taken a glance (§§ 49, 53). To these we need not recur; but 
there is one type of spiritualistic doctrine which is much dis- 
cussed at the present day and which appears to appeal strongly 
to a number of scientific men. We must consider it for a 
moment. 

We have examined Professor Clifford's doctrine of Mind- 
stuff (§ 43). CHfford maintained that all the material things 
we perceive are our perceptions — they are in our consciousness, 
and are not properly external at all. But, beheving, as he did, 
that all nature is animated, he held that every material thing, 
every perception, may be taken as a revelation of something 
not in our consciousness, of a mind or, at least, of a certain 
amount of mind-stuff. How shall we conceive the relation 
between what is in our mind and the something corresponding 
to it not in our mind ? 



igS An Introductio7i to Philosophy 

We must, says Clifford, regard the latter as the reality of 
which the former is the appearance or manifestation. " What 
I perceive as your brain is really in itself your consciousness, 
is You; but then that which I call your brain, the material 
fact, is merely my perception." 

This doctrine is Panpsychism, in the form in which it is 
usually brought to our attention. It holds that the only real 
existences are minds, and that physical phenomena must be 
regarded as the manifestations under which these real existences 
make us aware of their presence. The term panpsychism may, 
it is true, be used in a somewhat different sense. It may be 
employed merely to indicate the doctrine that all nature is ani- 
mated, and without implying a theory as to the relation between 
bodies perceived and the minds supposed to accompany them. 

What shall we say to panpsychism of the type represented 
by Clifford ? It is, I think, sufficiently answered in the earlier 
chapters of this volume : — 

(i) If I call material facts my perceptions, I do an injustice 
to the distinction between the physical and the mental (Chapter 
IV). 

(2) If I say that all nature is animated, I extend illegitimately 
the argument for other minds (Chapter X). 

(3) If I say that mind is the reality of which the brain is the 
appearance, I misconceive what is meant by the distinction 
between appearance and reality (Chapter V). 

57. The Doctrine of the One Substance. — In the seventeenth 
century Descartes maintained that, although mind and matter 
may justly be regarded as two substances, yet it should be 
recognized that they are not really independent substances in 
the strictest sense of the word, but that there is only one sub- 
stance, in this sense, and mind and matter are, as it were, its 
attributes. 

His thought was that by attribute we mean that which is not 
independent, but must be referred to something else; by sub- 



Monism and Dualism 199 

stance, we mean that which exists independently and is not 
referred to any other thing. It seemed to follow that there 
could be only one substance. 

Spinoza modified Descartes' doctrine in that he refused to 
regard mind and matter as substances at all. He made them 
unequivocally attributes of the one and only substance, which 
he called God. 

The thought which influenced Spinoza had impressed many 
minds before his time, and it has influenced many since. One 
need not follow him in naming the unitary something to which 
mind and matter are referred substance. One may call it 
Being, or Reality, or the Unknowable, or Energy, or the Abso- 
lute, or, perhaps, still something else. The doctrine has taken 
many forms, but he who reads with discrimination will see that 
the various forms have much in common. 

They agree in maintaining that matter and mind, as they 
are revealed in our experience, are not to be regarded as, in the 
last analysis, two distinct kinds of thing. They are, rather, 
modes or manifestations of one and the same thing, and this 
is not to be confounded with either. 

Those who incline to this doctrine take issue with the materi- 
alist, who assimilates mental phenomena to physical; and they 
oppose the idealist, who assimilates physical phenomena to 
mental, and calls material things "ideas." We have no right, 
they argue, to call that of which ideas and things are manifes- 
tations either mind or matter. It is to be distinguished from 
both. 

To this doctrine the title of Monism is often appropriated. In 
this chapter I have used the term in a broader sense, for both 
the materialist and the spiritualist maintain that there is in the 
universe but one kind of thing. Nevertheless, when we hear a 
man called a monist without qualification, we may, perhaps, 
be justified in assuming, in the absence of further information, 
that he holds to some one of the forms of doctrine indicated above. 



200 An Introduction to Philosophy 

There may be no logical justification for thus narrowing the use 
of the term, but logical justification goes for Httle in such matters. 

Various considerations have moved men to become monists 
in this sense of the word. Some have been influenced by the 
assumption — one which men felt impelled to make early in the 
history of speculative thought — that the whole universe must 
be the expression of some unitary principle. A rather different 
argument is well illustrated in the writings of Professor Hoffding, 
a learned and acute writer of our own time. It has influenced 
so many that it is worth while to delay upon it. 

Professor Hoffding holds that mental phenomena and physical 
phenomena must be regarded as parallel (see Chapter IX), 
and that we must not conceive of ideas and material things as 
interacting. He writes:^ — 

" If it is contrary to the doctrine of the persistence of physical 
energy to suppose a transition from the one province to the other, 
and if, nevertheless, the two provinces exist in our experience as 
distinct, then the two sets of phenomena must be unfolded 
simultaneously, each according to its laws, so that for every 
phenomenon in the world ofconscipusn^ssjherei.s^ 
ing phenomenon in the world of niatter, and conversely (so 
far as there is reason to suppose that conscious life is correlated 
with material phenomena). The parallels already drawn 
point directly to such a relation; it would be an amazing ac- 
cident, if, while the characteristic marks repeated themselves 
in this way, there were not at the foundation an inner connec- 
tion. Both the parallelism and the proportionality between the 
activity of consciousness and cerebral activity point to an 
identity at bottom. The difference which remains in spite of 
the points of agreement compels us to suppose that one and the 
same principle has found its expression in a double form. We 
have no right to take mind and body for two beings or substances 
in reciprocal interaction. We are, on the contrary, impelled 

^ "Outlines of Psychology," pp. 64-65, English translation, 1891. 



Monism and Dualism 



20I 



to conceive the material interaction between the elements com- 
posing the brain and nervous system as an outer form of the 
inner ideal unity of consciousness. What we in our inner ex- 
perience become conscious of as thought, feehng, and resolution, 
is thus represented in the material world by certain material 
processes of the brain, which as such are subject to the law of 
the persistence of energy, although this law cannot be applied 
to the relation between cerebral and conscious processes. It 
is as though the same thing were said in two languages." 

Some monists are in the habit of speaking of the. one Being 
to which they refer phenomena of all sorts as the "Absolute." 
The word is a vague one, and means very different things in 
different philosophies. It has been somewhat broadly defined 
as "the ultimate principle of explanation of the universe." 
He who turns to one principle of explanation will conceive the 
Absolute in one way, and he who turns to another will, naturally, 
understand something else by the word. 

Thus, the idealist may conceive of the Absolute as an all- 
inclusive Mind, of which finite minds are parts. To Spencer, it 
is the Unknowable, a something behind the veil of phenomena. 
Sometimes it means to a writer much the same thing that the 
word God means to other men ; sometimes it has a significance 
at the farthest remove from this (§ 53). Indeed, the word is 
so vague and ambiguous, and has proved itself the mother of so 
many confusions, that it would seem a desirable thing to drop 
it out of philosophy altogether, and to substitute for it some 
less ambiguous expression. 

It seems clear from the preceding pages, that, before one 
either accepts or rejects monism, one should very carefully 
determine just what one means by the word, and should scru- 
tinize the considerations which may be urged in favor of the par- 
ticular doctrine in question. There are all sorts of monism, 
and men embrace them for all sorts of reasons. Let me beg 
the reader to bear in mind : — 



202 An Introduction to Philosophy 

(i) The monist may be a materialist; he may be an idealist; 
he may be neither. In the last case, he may, with Spinoza, 
call the one Substance God; that is, he may be a Pantheist. 
On the other hand, he may, with Spencer, call it the Unknowable, 
and be an Agnostic. Other shades of opinion are open to him, 
if he cares to choose them. 

(2) It does not seem wise to assent hastily to such statements 
as: "The universe is the manifestation of one unitary Being"; 
or: "Mind and matter are the expression of one and the same 
principle." We find revealed in our experience mental phenom- 
ena and physical phenomena. In what sense they are one, 
or whether they are one in any sense, — this is something to be 
determined by an examination of the phenomena and of the 
relations in which we find them. It may turn out that the 
universe is one only in the sense that all phenomena belong to 
the one orderly system. If we find that this is the case, we may 
still, if we choose, call our doctrine monism, but we should care- 
fully distinguish such a monism from those represented by 
Hoffding and Spencer and many others. There seems little 
reason to use the word, when the doctrine has been so far modi- 
fied. 

58. Dualism. — The plain man finds himself in a world of 
physical things and of minds, and it seems to him that his 
experience directly testifies to the existence of both. This 
means that the things of which he has experience appear to 
belong to two distinct classes. 

It does not mean, of course, that he has only two kinds of 
experiences. The phenomena which are revealed to us are 
indefinitely varied; all physical phenomena are not just aHke, 
and all mental phenomena are not just alike. 

Nevertheless, amid all the bewildering variety that forces 
itself upon our attention, there stands out one broad distinction, 
that of the physical and the mental. It is a distinction that the 
man who has done no reading in the philosophers is scarcely 



Monism and Dualism 203 

tempted to obliterate; to him the world consists of two kinds 
of things widely different from each other: minds are not 
material things and material things are not minds. We are 
justified in regarding this as the opinion of the plain man even 
when we recognize that, in his endeavor to make clear to himself 
what he means by minds, he sometimes speaks as though he 
were talking about something material or semi-material. 

Now, the materialist allows these two classes to run together; 
so does the idealist. The one says that everything is matter; 
the other, that everything is mind. It would be fooHsh to 
maintain that nothing can be said for either doctrine, for men 
of abihty have embraced each. But one may at least say that 
both seem to be refuted by our common experience of the world, 
an experience which, so far as it is permitted to testify at all, 
Hfts up its voice in favor of Dualism. 

Dualism is sometimes defined as the doctrine that there are 
in the world two kinds of substances, matter and mind, which 
are different in kind and should be kept distinct. There are 
dualists who prefer to avoid the use of the word substance, and 
to say that the world of our experiences consists of physical 
phenomena and of mental phenomena, and that these two 
classes of facts should be kept separate. 

The dualist may maintain that we have a direct knowledge 
of matter and of mind, and he may content himself with such a 
statement, doing Httle to make clear what we mean by matter 
and by mind. In this case, his position is Uttle different from 
that of the plain man who does not attempt to philosophize. 
Thomas Reid (§ 50) belongs to this class. 

On the other hand, the dualist may attempt to make clear, 
through philosophical reflection, what we mean by the matter 
and mind which experience seems to give us. He may con- 
clude : — 

(i) That he must hold, as did Sir William Hamilton, that we 
perceive directly only physical and mental phenomena, but are 



204 An Introduction to Philosophy 

justified in inferring that, since the phenomena are different, 
there must be two kinds of underlying substances to which the 
phenomena are referred. Thus, he may distinguish between the 
two substances and their manifestations, as some monists dis- 
tinguish between the one substance and its manifestations. 

(2) Or he may conclude that it is futile to search for substances 
or realities of any sort behind phenomena, arguing that such 
realities are never revealed in experience, and that no sound 
reason for their assumption can be adduced. In this case, he 
may try to make plain what mind and matter are, by simply 
analyzing our experiences of mind and matter and coming to 
a clearer comprehension of their nature. 

As the reader has probably remarked, the philosophy pre- 
sented in the earlier chapters of this book (Chapters III to XI) 
is dualistic as well as realistic. That is to say, it refuses to rub 
out the distinction between physical phenomena and mental 
phenomena, either by dissolving the material world into ideas; 
by calling ideas secretions or functions of the brain; or by 
declaring them one in a fictitious entity behind the veil and not 
supposed to be exactly identical with either. And as it teaches 
that the only reality that it means anything to talk about must 
be found in experience, it is a dualism of the type described in 
the paragraph which immediately precedes. 

Such a philosophy does not seem to do violence to the common 
experience of minds and of physical things shared by us all, 
whether we are philosophers or are not. It only tries to make 
clear what we all know dimly and vaguely. This is, I think, 
a point in its favor. However, men of great ability and of 
much learning have inclined to doctrines very different; and 
we have no right to make up our minds on such a subject as 
this without trying to give them an attentive and an impartial 
hearing. 

59. Singularism and Pluralism. — There are those who apply 
to the various forms of monism the title Singularism, and who 



Monism and Dualism 205 

contrast with this Pluralism, a word which is meant to cover 
the various doctrines which maintain that there is more than one 
ultimate principle or being in the universe. 

It is argued that we should have some word under which we 
may bring such a doctrine, for example, as that of the Greek 
philosopher Empedocles (born about 490 B.C.)- This thinker 
made earth, water, fire, and air the four material principles or 
"roots" of things. He was not a monist, and we can certainly 
not call him a dualist.' 

Again. The term pluralism has been used to indicate the 
doctrine that individual finite minds are not parts or mani- 
festations of one all-embracing Mind, — of God or the Absolute, 
— but are relatively independent beings. This doctrine has 
been urged in our own time, with eloquence and feeling, by 
Professor Howison.^ Here we have a pluralism which is idealis- 
tic, for it admits in the universe but one kind of thing, minds; 
and yet refuses to call itself monistic. It will readily be seen that 
in this paragraph and in the one preceding the word is used in 
different senses. 

I have added the above sentences to this chapter that the 
reader may have an explanation of the meaning of a word 
sometimes met with. But the title of the chapter is "Monism 
and Dualism," and it is of this contrast that it is especially 
important to grasp the significance. 

^"The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays," revised edition, New York, 
1905. 



CHAPTER XV 

RATIONALISM, EMPIRICISM, CRITICISM, AND CRITICAL 
EMPIRICISM 

60. Rationalism. — As the content of a philosophical doc- 
trine must be determined by the initial assumptions which a 
philosopher makes and by the method which he adopts in his 
reasonings, it is well to examine with some care certain broad 
differences in this respect which characterize different philoso- 
phers, and which help to explain how it is that the results of 
their reflections are so startlingly different. 

I shall first speak of Rationalism, which I may somewhat 
loosely define as the doctrine that the reason can attain truth 
independently of observation — can go beyond experienced 
fact and the deductions which experience seems to justify us 
in making from experienced fact. The definition cannot mean 
much to us until it is interpreted by a concrete example, and I 
shall turn to such. It must, however, be borne in mind that the 
word " rationalism " is meant to cover a great variety of opinions, 
and we have said comparatively little about him when we have 
called a man a rationalist in philosophy. Men may agree in 
believing that the reason can go beyond experienced fact, and 
yet may differ regarding the particular truths which may be 
thus attained. 

Now, when Descartes found himself discontented with the 
philosophy that he and others had inherited from the Middle 
Ages, and undertook a reconstruction, he found it necessary to 
throw over a vast amount of what had passed as truth, if only 
with a view to building up again upon a firmer foundation. It 
appeared to him that much was uncritically accepted as true 

206 



Rationalism 207 

in philosophy and in the sciences which a little reflection re- 
vealed to be either false or highly doubtful. Accordingly, he 
decided to clear the ground by a sweeping doubt, and to begin 
his task quite independently. 

In accordance with this principle, he rejected the testimony 
of the senses touching the existence of a world of external things. 
Do not the senses sometimes deceive us? And, since men seem 
to be liable to error in their reasonings, even in a field so secure 
as that of mathematical demonstration, he resolved further to 
repudiate all the reasonings he had heretofore accepted. He 
would not even assume himself to be in his right mind and 
awake; might he not be the victim of a diseased fancy, or a man 
deluded by dreams? 

Could anything whatever escape this all-devouring doubt? 
One truth seemed unshakable: his own existence, at least, 
emerged from this sea of uncertainties. I may be deceived in 
thinking that there is an external world, and that I am awake 
and really perceive things ; but I surely cannot be deceived unless 
I exist. Cogito, ergo sum — I think, hence I exist ; this truth 
Descartes accepted as the first principle of the new and sounder 
philosophy which he sought. 

As we read farther in Descartes we discover that he takes 
back again a great many of those things that he had at the 
outset rejected as uncertain. Thus, he accepts an external 
world of material things. How does he establish its existence? 
He cannot do it as the empiricist does it, by a reference to ex- 
perienced fact, for he does not believe that the external world 
is directly given in our experience. He thinks we are directly 
conscious only of our ideas of it, and must somehow prove that 
it exists over against our ideas. 

By his principles, Descartes is compelled to fall back upon a 
curious roundabout argument to prove that there is a world. 
He must first prove that God exists, and then argue that God 
would not deceive us into thinking that it exists when it does not. 



2o8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Now, when we come to examine Descartes' reasonings in 
detail we find what appear to us some very uncritical assump- 
tions. Thus, he proves the existence of God by the following 
argument : — 

I exist, and I find in me the idea of God ; of this idea I cannot 
be the author, for it represents something much greater than I, 
and its cause must be as great as the reality it represents. In 
other words, nothing less than God can be the cause of the idea 
of God which I find in me, and, hence, I may infer that God 
exists. 

Where did Descartes get this notion that every idea must 
have a cause which contains as much external reality as the 
idea does represented reality? How does he prove his assump- 
tion? He simply appeals to what he calls "the natural light," 
which is for him a source of all sorts of information which cannot 
be derived from experience. This "natural light" furnishes him 
with a vast number of "eternal truths"; these he has not 
brought under the sickle of his sweeping doubt, and these help 
him to build up again the world he has overthrown, beginning 
with the one indubitable fact discussed above. 

To the men of a later time many of Descartes' eternal truths 
are simply inherited philosophical prejudices, the results of the 
reflections of earlier thinkers, and in sad need of revision. 
I shall not criticise them in detail. The important point for us 
to notice is that we have here a type of philosophy which de- 
pends upon truths revealed by the reason, independently of 
experience, to carry one beyond the sphere of experience. 

I again remind the reader that there are all sorts of rational- 
ists, in the philosophical sense of the word. Some trust the 
power of the unaided reason without reserve. Thus Spinoza, 
the pantheist, made the magnificent but misguided attempt to 
deduce the whole system of things physical and things mental 
from what he called the attributes of God, Extension and Thought. 

On the other hand, one may be a good deal of an empiricist, 



Empiricism 209 

and yet something of a rationalist, too. Thus Professor Strong, 
in his recent brilliant book, "Why the Mind has a Body," 
maintains that we know intuitively that other minds than our 
own exist; know it without gathering our information from 
experience, and without having to establish the fact in any way. 
This seems, at least, akin to the doctrine of the "natural light," 
and yet no one can say that Professor Strong does not, in general, 
believe in a philosophy of observation and experiment. 

61. Empiricism. — I suppose every one who has done some 
reading in the history of philosophy will, if his mother tongue 
be English, think of the name of John Locke when empiricism 
is mentioned. 

Locke, in his "Essay concerning Human Understanding," 
undertakes "to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent 
of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees 
of belief, opinion, and assent." His sober and cautious work, 
which was first published in 1690, was peculiarly English in 
character; and the spirit which it exemplifies animates also 
Locke's famous successors, George Berkeley (1684-1753), 
David Hume (1711-1776), and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). 
Although Locke was a realist, Berkeley an idealist, Hume a 
skeptic, and Mill what has been called a sensationalist; yet 
all were empiricists of a sort, and emphasized the necessity of 
founding our knowledge upon experience. 

Now, Locke was familiar with the writings of Descartes, 
whose work he admired, but whose rationalism offended him. 
The first book of the "Essay" is devoted to the proof that there 
are in the mind of man no "innate ideas" and no "innate prin- 
ciples." That is to say, Locke tries to show that one must not 
seek, in the "natural light" to which Descartes turned, a dis- 
tinct and independent source of information. 

"Let us, then," he continues, "suppose the mind to be, as 
we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; 
how comes it to be furnished ? Whence comes it by that vast 
p 



2IO An Introduction to Philosophy 

store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted 
on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the 
materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one 
word, from experience; in that all our knowledge is founded, 
and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation, 
employed either about external sensible objects, or about the 
internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by 
ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all 
the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowl- 
edge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, 
do spring." ^ 

Thus, all we know and all we ever shall know of the world 
of matter and of minds must rest ultimately upon observation, 
— observation of external things and of our own mind. We 
must clip the erratic wing of a "reason" which seeks to soar 
beyond such knowledge ; which leaves the solid earth, and hangs 
suspended in the void. 

"But hold," exclaims the critical reader; "have we not seen 
that Locke, as well as Descartes (§ 48), claims to know what 
he cannot prove by direct observation or even by a legitimate 
inference from what has been directly observed ? Does he not 
maintain that the mind has an immediate knov/ledge or ex- 
perience only of its own ideas? How can he prove that there 
are material extended things outside causing these ideas? And 
if he cannot prove it by an appeal to experience, to direct ob- 
servation, is he not, in accepting the existence of the external 
world at all, just as truly as Descartes, a rationalist?" 

The objection is well taken. On his own principles, Locke 
had no right to believe in an external world. He has stolen his 
world, so to speak; he has taken it by violence. Nevertheless, 
as I pointed out in the section above referred to, Locke is not 
a rationalist of malice prepense. He tries to be an empiricist. 
He believes in the external world because he thinks it is directly 

^ "An Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book II, Chapter I, § 2. 



Criticism 211 

revealed to the senses — he inconsistently refers to experience 
as evidence of its existence. 

It has often been claimed by those who do not sympathize 
with empiricism that the empiricists make assumptions much 
as others do, but have not the grace to admit it. I think we 
must frankly confess that a man may try hard to be an empiricist 
and may not be wholly successful. Moreover, reflection forces 
us to the conclusion that when we have defined empiricism as 
a doctrine which rests throughout upon an appeal to "experience " 
we have not said anything very definite. 

What is experience ? What may we accept as directly re- 
vealed fact? The answer to such questions is far from an easy 
one to give. It is a harder matter to discuss intelligently than 
any one can at all realize until he has spent some years in follow- 
ing the efforts of the philosophers to determine what is "re- 
vealed fact." We are supposed to have experience of our own 
minds, of space, of time, of matter. What are these things as 
revealed in our experience? We have seen in the earlier chap- 
ters of this book that one cannot answer such questions off- 
hand. 

62. Criticism. — I have in another chapter (§ 51) given a 
brief account of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He called 
his doctrine "Criticism," and he distinguished it from "Dog- 
matism" and "Empiricism." 

Every philosophy that transcends experience, without first 
critically examining our faculty of knowledge and determining 
its right to spread its wings in this way, Kant calls "dogmatism." 
The word seems rather an offensive one, in its usual signification, 
at least ; and it is as well not to use it. As Kant used the word, 
Descartes was a dogmatist; but let us rather call him a rational- 
ist. He certainly had no intention of proceeding uncritically, 
as we shall see a little later. If we call him a dogmatist we 
seem to condemn him in advance, by applying to him an abusive 
epithet. 



212 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Empiricism, according to Kant, confines human knowledge 
to experience, and thus avoids the errors which beset the dog- 
matist. But then, as Hume seemed to have shown, empiricism 
must run out into skepticism. If all our knowledge has its 
foundations in experience, how can we expect to find in our 
possession any universal or necessary truths ? May not a later 
experience contradict an earlier? How can we be sure that what 
has been will be? Can we know that there is anything fixed 
and certain in our world ? 

Skepticism seemed a forlorn doctrine, and, casting about for 
a way of escape from it, Kant hit upon the expedient which I 
have described. So long as we maintain that our knowledge 
has no other source than the experiences which the world im- 
prints upon us, so to speak, from without, we are without the 
power of prediction, for new experiences may annihilate any 
generalizations we have founded upon those already vouch- 
safed us; but if we assume that the world upon which we gaze, 
the world of phenomena, is made what it is by the mind that 
perceives it, are we not in a different position? 

Suppose, for example, we take the statement that there must 
be an adequate cause of all the changes that take place in the 
world. Can a mere experience of what has been in the past 
guarantee that this law will hold good in the future? But, 
when we realize that the world of which we are speaking is! 
nothing more than a world of phenomena, of experiences, and] 
realize further that this whole world is constructed by the mind] 
out of the raw materials furnished by the senses, may we not 
have a greater confidence in our law? If it is the nature of the 
mind to connect the phenomena presented to it with one an- 1 
other as cause and effect, may we not maintain that no phe-; 
nomenon can possibly make its appearance that defies the law! 
in question? How could it appear except under the conditions 
laid upon all phenomena? If it is our nature to think the world '■ 
as an orderly one, and if we can know no world save the one j 



Criticism 2 1 3 

we construct ourselves, the orderliness of all the things we can 
know seems to be guaranteed to us. 

It will be noticed that Kant's doctrine has a negative side. 
He hmits our knowledge to phenomena, to experiences, and he 
is himself, in so far, an empiricist. But in that he finds in 
experience an order, an arrangement of things, not derived 
from experience in the usual sense of the word, he is not an 
empiricist. He has paid his own doctrine the compliment of 
calling it "criticism," as I have said. 

Now, I beg the reader to be here, as elsewhere, on his guard 
against the associations which attach to words. In calling 
Kant's doctrine "the critical philosophy," we are in some danger 
of uncritically assuming and leading others to believe uncriti- 
cally that it is free from such defects as may be expected to 
attach to "dogmatism" and to empiricism. Such a position 
should not be taken until one has made a most careful exami- 
nation of each of the three types of doctrine, of the assumptions 
which it makes, and of the rigor with which it draws inferences 
upon the basis of such assumptions. That we may be the better 
able to withstand "undue influence," I call attention to the 
following points : — 

(i) We must bear in mind that the attempt to make a critical 
examination into the foundations of our knowledge, and to 
determine its scope, is by no means a new thing. Among the 
Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the 
Skeptics, all attacked the problem. It did not, of course, 
present itself to these men in the precise form in which it pre- 
sented itself to Kant, but each and all were concerned to find 
an answer to the question : Can we know anything with certainty ; 
and, if so, what? They may have failed to be thoroughly criti- 
cal, but they certainly made the attempt. 

I shall omit mention of the long series of others, who, since 
that time, have carried on the tradition, and shall speak only of 
Descartes and Locke, whom I have above brought forward 



214 -^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

as representatives of the two types of doctrine that Kant con- 
trasts with his own. 

To see how strenuously Descartes endeavored to subject his 
knowledge to a critical scrutiny and to avoid unjustifiable as- 
sumptions of any sort, one has only to read that charming little 
work of genius, the "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Con- 
ducting the Reason." 

In his youth Descartes was, as he informs us, an eager stu- 
dent; but, when he had finished the whole course of education 
usually prescribed, he found himself so full of doubts and errors 
that he did not feel that he had advanced in learning at all. 
Yet he had been well tutored, and was considered as bright in 
mind as others. He was led to judge his neighbor by himself, 
and to conclude that there existed no such certain science as he 
had been taught to suppose. 

Having ripened with years and experience, Descartes set about 
the task of which I have spoken above, the task of sweeping 
away the whole body of his opinions and of attempting a general 
and systematic reconstruction. So important a work should 
be, he thought, approached with circumspection; hence, he 
formulated certain Rules of Method. 

"The first," he writes, "was never to accept anything for 
true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is, carefully 
to avoid haste and prejudice, and to include nothing more in 
my judgments than what was presented to my mind so clearly 
and distinctly as to exclude all reason for doubt." 

Such was our philosopher's design, and such the spirit in 
which he set about it. We have seen the result above. It is 
as if Descartes had decided that a certain room full of people 
did not appear to be free from suspicious characters, and had 
cleared out every one, afterwards posting himself at the door to 
readmit only those who proved themselves worthy. When we 
examine those who succeeded in passing muster, we discover 
he has favored all his old friends. He simply cannot doubt 



Criticism 215 

them; are they not vouched for by the "natural hght" ? Never- 
theless, we must not forget that Descartes sifted his congre- 
gation with much travail of spirit. He did try to be critical. 

As for John Locke, he reveals in the "Epistle to the Reader," 
which stands as a preface to the "Essay," the critical spirit 
in which his work was taken up. "Were it fit to trouble thee," 
he writes, " with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee, 
that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing 
on a subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly 
at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After 
we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer 
a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into 
my thoughts, that we took a wrong course; and that before we 
set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to 
examine our own abilities, and to see what objects our under- 
standings were, or were not, fitted to deal with." 

This problem, proposed by himself to his little circle of 
friends, Locke attacked with earnestness, and as a result he 
brought out many years later the work which has since become 
so famous. The book is literally a critique of the reason, al- 
though a very different critique from that worked out by Kant. 

"If, by this inquiry into the nature of the understanding," 
says Locke, "I can discover the powers thereof, how far they 
reach, to what things they are in any degree proportionate, 
and where they fail us; I suppose it may be of use to prevail 
with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling 
with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is at 
the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet ig- 
norance of those things which upon examination are found to 
be beyond the reach of our capacities." ^ 

To the difficulties of the task our author is fully alive: "The 
understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive 
all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and 

1 Book I, Chapter I, § 4. 



2i6 An Introduction to Philosophy 

pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own object. But 
whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry, 
whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves, 
sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our own minds, 
all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, 
will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, 
in directing our thoughts in the search of other things." ^ 

(2) Thus, many men have attempted to produce a critical 
philosophy, and in much the same sense as that in which Kant 
uses the words. Those who have come after them have decided 
that they were not sufficiently critical, that they have made un- 
justifiable assumptions. When we come to read Kant, we will, 
if we have read the history of philosophy with profit, not forget 
to ask ourselves if he has not sinned in the same way. 

For example, we will ask : — 

(a) Was Kant right in maintaining that we find in experience 
synthetic judgments (§51) that are not founded upon experience, 
but yield such information as is beyond the reach of the em- 
piricist? There are those who think that the judgments to 
which he alludes in evidence of his contention — the mathe- 
matical, for instance — are not of this character. 

(b) Was he justified in assuming that all the ordering of our 
world is due to the activity of mind, and that merely the raw 
material is "given" us through the senses? There are many 
who demur against such a statement, and hold that it is, if not 
in all senses untrue, at least highly misleading, since it seems to 
argue that there is no really external world at all. Moreover, 
they claim that the doctrine is neither self-evident nor susceptible 
of proper proof. 

(c) Was Kant justified in assuming that, even if we attribute 
the "form" or arrangement of the world we know to the native 
activity of the mind, the necessity and universality of our 
knowledge is assured? Let us grant that the proposition, 

^ Book I, Chapter I, § i. 



Criticism 217 

whatever happens must have an adequate cause, is a "form of 
thought. ' ' What guarantee have we that the ' ' forms of thought ' ' 
must ever remain changeless? If it is an assumption for the 
empiricist to declare that what has been true in the past will be 
true in the future, that earlier experiences of the world will not 
be contradicted by later; what is it for the Kantian to maintain 
that the order which he finds in his experience will necessarily 
and always be the order of all future experiences? Trans- 
ferring an assumption to the field of mind does not make it less 
of an assumption. 

Thus, it does not seem unreasonable to charge Kant with 
being a good deal of a rationalist. He tried to confine our 
knowledge to the field of experience, it is true; but he made a 
number of assumptions as to the nature of experience which 
certainly do not shine by their own light, and which many 
thoughtful persons regard as incapable of justification. 

Kant's famous successors in the German philosophy, Fichte 
(1762-1814), Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831), and 
Schopenhauer (i 788-1860), all received their impulse from the 
"critical philosophy," and yet each developed his doctrine in a 
relatively independent way. 

I cannot here take the space to characterize the systems of 
these men; I may merely remark that all of- them contrast 
strongly in doctrine and method with the British philosophers 
mentioned in the last section, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill. 
They are un-empirical, if one may use such a word; and, to 
one accustomed to reading the English philosophy, they seem 
ever ready to spread their wings and hazard the boldest of 
flights without a proper realization of the thinness of the at- 
mosphere in which they must support themselves. 

However, no matter what may be one's opinion of the actual 
results attained by these German philosophers, one must frankly 
admit that no one who wishes to understand clearly the develop- 
ment of speculative thought can afford to dispense with a care- 



2i8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

ful reading of them. Much even of the English philosophy 
of our own day must remain obscure to those who have not 
looked into their pages. Thus, the thought of Kant and Hegel 
molded the thought of Thomas Hill Green (183 6- 1882) and 
of the brothers Caird; and their influence has made itself widely 
felt both in England and in America. One cannot criticise 
intelHgently books written from their standpoint, unless one 
knows how the authors came by their doctrine and out of what 
it has been developed. 

63. Critical Empiricism. — We have seen that the trouble 
with the rationalists seemed to be that they made an appeal to 
"eternal truths," which those who followed them could not 
admit to be eternal truths at all. They proceeded on a basis 
of assumptions the validity of which was at once called in 
question. 

Locke, the empiricist, repudiated all this, and then also made 
assumptions which others could not, and cannot, approve. 
Kant did something of much the same sort; we cannot regard 
his "criticism" as wholly critical. 

How can we avoid such errors? How walk cautiously, and 
go around the pit into which, as it seems to us, others have 
fallen? I may as well tell the reader frankly that he sets his 
hope too high if he expects to avoid all error and to work out 
for himself a philosophy in all respects unassailable. The diffi- 
culties of reflective thought are very great, and we should carry 
with us a consciousness of that fact and a willingness to revise 
our most cherished conclusions. 

Our initial difficulty seems to be that we must begin by as- 
suming something, if only as material upon which to work. We 
must begin our philosophizing somewhere. Where shall we 
begin? May we not fall into error at the very outset? 

The doctrine set forth in the earlier chapters of this volume 
maintains that we must accept as our material the revelation 
of the mind and the world which seems to be made in our com- 



Pragmatism 219 

mon experience, and which is extended and systematized in the 
sciences. But it insists that we must regard such an acceptance 
as merely provisional, must subject our concepts to a careful 
criticism, and must always be on our guard against hasty 
assumptions. 

It emphasizes the value of the light which historical study 
casts upon the real meaning of the concepts which we all use 
and must use, but which have so often proved to be stones of 
stumbling in the path of those who have employed them. Its 
watchword is analysis, always analysis; and a settled distrust 
of what have so often passed as "self-evident" truths. It re- 
gards it as its task to analyze experience, while maintaining that 
only the satisfactory carrying out of such an analysis can re- 
veal what experience really is, and clear our notions of it from 
misinterpretations. 

No such attempt to give an account of experience can be 
regarded as fundamentally new in its method. Every philoso- 
pher, in his own way, criticises experience, and seeks its inter- 
pretation. But one may, warned by the example of one's 
predecessors, lay emphasis upon the danger of half-analyses 
and hasty assumptions, and counsel the observance of sobriety 
and caution. 

For convenience, I have called the doctrine Critical Empiri- 
cism. I warn the reader against the seductive title, and advise 
him not to allow it to influence him unduly in his judgment of 
the doctrine. 

64. Pragmatism. — It seems right that I should, before clos- 
ing this chapter, say a few words about Pragmatism, which has 
been so much discussed in the last few years. 

In 1878 Mr. Charles S. Peirce wrote an article for the Popular 
Science Monthly in which he proposed as a maxim for the 
attainment of clearness of apprehension the following: "Con- 
sider what effects, which might conceivably have practical 
bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. 



2 20 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our concep- 
tion of the object." 

This thought has been taken up by others and given a develop- 
ment which Mr. Peirce regards with some suspicion. He 
refers ^ especially to the development it has received at the hands 
of Professor William James, in his two essays, "The Will to 
Believe" and "Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Re- 
sults." ^ Professor James is often regarded as foremost among 
the pragmatists. 

I shall not attempt to define pragmatism, for I do not beheve 
that the doctrine has yet attained to that definiteness of formu- 
lation which warrants a definition. We seem to have to do 
not so much with a clear-cut doctrine, the limits and conse- 
quences of which have been worked out in detail, as with a 
tendency which makes itself apparent in the works of various 
writers under somewhat different forms. 

I may roughly describe it as the tendency to take that to be 
true which is useful or serviceable. It is well illustrated in the 
two essays to which reference is made above. 

Thus, Professor James dwells upon the unsatisfactoriness and 
uncertainty of philosophical and scientific knowledge: "Ob- 
jective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to 
play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet 
are they found?" 

Now, among those things regarding which it appears impos- 
sible to attain to intellectual certitude, there are matters of great 
practical moment, and which affect deeply the conduct of life ; 
for example, the doctrines of religion. Here a merely skeptical 
attitude seems intolerable. 

In such cases, argues Professor James, " we have the right to 
believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to 
tempt our will." 

^ "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology," article "Pragmatism." 
^ Published in 1897 and 1898. 



Pragmatism 221 

It is important to notice that there is no question here of a 
logical right. We are concerned with matters regarding which, 
according to Professor James, we cannot look for intellectual 
evidence. It is assumed that we beheve simply because we 
choose to beheve — we believe arbitrarily. 

It is further important to notice that what is a "live" hy- 
pothesis to one man need not tempt the will of another man at 
all. As our author points out, a Turk would naturally will to 
believe one thing and a Christian would will to believe another. 
Each would will to believe what struck him as a satisfactory 
thing to believe. 

What shall we say to this doctrine? I think we must say that 
it is clearly not a philosophical method 0} attaining to truth. 
Hence, it has not properly a place in this chapter among the 
attempts which have been made to attain to the truth of 
things. 

It is, in fact, not concerned with truths, but with assump- 
tions, and with assumptions which are supposed to be made on 
the basis of no evidence. It is concerned with "seemings." 

The distinction is a very important one. Our Turk cannot, 
by willing to believe it, make his hypothesis true; but he can 
make it seem true. Why should he wish to make it seem true 
whether it is true or not? Why should he strive to attain to 
a feehng of subjective certainty, not by logically resolving his 
doubts, but by ignoring them ? 

The answer is given us by our author. He who hves in the 
midst of doubts, and refuses to cut his knot with the sword of 
belief, misses the good of hfe. This is a practical problem, and 
one of no small moment. In the last section of this book I 
have tried to indicate what it is wise for a man to do when he 
is confronted by doubts w^hich he cannot resolve. 

Into the general question whether even a false belief may 
not, under some circumstances, be more serviceable than no 
behef at all, I shall not enter. The point I wish to emphasize 



222 An Introduction to Philosophy 

is that there is all the difference in the world between producing 
a belief and proving a truth. 

We are compelled to accept it as a fact that men, under the 
influence of feeling, can beheve in the absence of evidence, or, 
for that matter, can believe in spite of evidence. But a truth 
cannot be established in the absence of evidence or in the face 
of adverse evidence. And there is a very wide field in which it 
is made very clear to us that beliefs adopted in the absence of 
evidence are in danger of being false beliefs. 

The pragmatist would join with the rest of us in condemning 
the Turk or the Christian who would simply will to believe in 
the rise or the fall of stocks, and would refuse to consult the state 
of the market. Some hypotheses are, in the ordinary course 
of events, put to the test of verification. We are then made 
painfully aware that beliefs and truths are quite distinct things, 
and may not be in harmony. 

Now, the pragmatist does not apply his principle to this 
field. He confines it to what may not inaptly be called the 
field of the unverifiable. The Turk, who wills to believe in the 
hypothesis that appeals to him as a pious Turk, is in no such 
danger of a rude awakening as is the man who wills to believe 
that stocks will go up or down. But mark what this means: 
it means that he is not in danger of finding out what the truth 
really is. It does not mean that he is in possession of the truth. 

So I say, the doctrine which we are discussing is not a method 
of attaining to truth. What it really attempts to do is to point 
out to us how it is prudent for us to act when we cannot dis- 
cover what the truth is. 



V. THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES 

CHAPTER XVI 
LOGIC 

65. Introductory : The Philosophical Sciences. — I have said 
in the first chapter of this book (§6) that there is quite a group 
of sciences that are regarded as belonging peculiarly to the 
province of the teacher of philosophy to-day. Having, in the 
chapters preceding, given some account of the nature of re- 
flective thought, of the problems touching the world and the 
mind which present themselves to those who reflect, and of 
some types of philosophical theory which have their origin in 
such reflection, I turn to a brief consideration of the philosophical 
sciences. 

Among these I included logic, psychology, ethics, and aesthet- 
ics, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. I did not 
include epistemology or " the theory of knowledge " as a separate 
discipHne, and my reasons for this will appear in Chapter XIX. 
I remarked that, to complete the list, we should have to add the 
philosophy of religion and an investigation into the principles 
and methods of the sciences generally. 

Why, it was asked, should this group of disciphnes be regarded 
as the field of the philosopher, when others are excluded ? The 
answer to this question which finds the explanation of the fact 
to lie in a mere historical accident was declared unsatisfactory, 
and it was maintained that the philosophical sciences are those 
in which we find ourselves carried back to the problems of re- 
flective thought. 

With a view to showing the truth of this opinion, I shall take 



224 -^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

up one by one the philosophical sciences. Of the history of 
philosophy I shall not speak in this part of the work, but shall 
treat of it in Chapter XXIII. 

66. The Traditional Logic. — Most of us begin our acquaint- 
ance with logic in the study of some such elementary manual 
as Jevons' " Lessons in Logic." 

In such books we are shown how terms represent things and 
classes of things or their attributes, and how we unite them into 
propositions or statements. It is indicated at length what state- 
ments may be made on a basis of certain other statements and 
what may not; and emphasis is laid upon the dangers which 
arise out of a misunderstanding of the language in which we 
are forced to express our thoughts. Finally, there are described 
for us the experimental methods by which the workers in the 
sciences have attained to the general information about the world 
which has become our heritage. 

Such books are useful. It is surely no small profit for a 
student to gain the habit of scrutinizing the steps by which he 
has come into the possession of a certain bit of information, and 
to have a quick eye for loose and inconsistent reasonings. 

But it is worthy of remark that one may study such a book 
as this and yet remain pretty consistently on what may be called 
the plane of the common understanding. One seems to make 
the assumptions made in all the special sciences, e.g. the as- 
sumption that there is a world of real things and that we can 
know them and reason about them. We are not introduced to 
such problems as : What is truth ? and Is any knowledge vaUd ? 
Nor does it seem at once apparent that the man who is studying 
logic in this way is busying himself with a philosophical dis- 
cipline. 

67. The "Modern Logic." — It is very puzzling for the stu- 
dent to turn from such a text-book as the one above mentioned 
to certain others which profess to be occupied with the same 
science, and which, yet, appear to treat of quite different things. 



Logic 225 

Thus, in Dr. Bosanquet's little work on "The Essentials 
of Logic," the reader is at once plunged into such questions as 
the nature of knowledge, and what is meant by the real world. 
We seem to be dealing with metaphysics, and not with logic, 
as we have learned to understand the term. How is it that the 
logician comes to regard these things as within his province? 

A multitude of writers at the present day are treating logic 
in this way, and in some great prominence is given to problems 
which the philosopher recognizes as indisputably his own. The 
term " modern logic " is often employed to denote a logic of this 
type; one which does not, after the fashion of the natural 
sciences generally, proceed on the basis of certain assumptions, 
and leave deeper questions to some other discipline, but tries 
to get to the bottom of things for itself. The tendency to run 
into metaphysics is peculiarly marked in those writers who have 
been influenced by the work of the philosopher Hegel. 

I shall not here ask why those who belong to one school are 
more inclined to be metaphysical than are those who belong 
to another, but shall approach the broader question why the 
logicians generally are inclined to be more metaphysical than 
those who work in certain other special sciences, such as mathe- 
matics, for example. Of the general tendency there can be no 
question. The only problem is: Why does this tendency 
exist ? 

68. Logic and Philosophy. — Let us contrast the science of 
arithmetic with logic; and let us notice, regarding it, the fol- 
lowing points : — 

It is, Kke logic, a general science, in that the things treated 
of in many sciences may be numbered. It considers only a 
certain aspect of the things. 

Now, that things may be counted, added together, subtracted, 
etc., is guaranteed by the experience of the plain man; and the 
methods of determining the numerical relations of things are 
gradually developed before his eyes, beginning with operations 

Q 



226 An Introductio7i to Philosophy 

of great simplicity. Moreover, verification is possible, and 
within certain limits verification by direct inspection. 

To this we may add, that there has gradually been built up 
a fine system of unambiguous symbols, and it is possible for 
a man to know just what he is deahng with. 

Thus, a certain beaten path has been attained, and a man 
may travel this very well without having forced on his attention 
the problems of reflective thought. The knowledge of numbers 
with which he starts is sufficient equipment with which to under- 
take the journey. That one is on the right road is proved by 
the results one obtains. As a rule, disputes can be settled 
by well-tried mathematical methods. 

There is, then, a common agreement as to initial assumptions 
and methods of work, and useful results are attained which seem 
to justify both. Here we have the normal characteristics of 
a special science. 

We must not forget, however, that, even in the mathematical 
sciences, before a beaten path was attained, disputes as to the 
significance of numbers and the cogency of proofs were suffi- 
ciently common. And we must bear in mind that even to-day, 
where the beaten path does not seem wholly satisfactory, men 
seem to be driven to reflect upon the significance of their assump- 
tions and the nature of their method. 

Thus, we find it not unnatural that a man should be led to 
ask: What is a minus quantity really? Can anything be less 
than nothing? or that he should raise the questions: Can one 
rightly speak of an infinite number? Can one infinite number 
be greater than another, and, if so, what can greater mean? 
What are infinitesimals? and what can be meant by different 
orders of infinitesimals? 

He who has interested himself in such questions as these 
has betaken himself to philosophical reflection. They are not 
answered by employing mathematical methods. 

Let us now turn to logic. And let us notice, to begin with, 



Logic 227 

that it is broader in its application than the mathematical sci- 
ences. It is concerned to discover what constitutes evidence 
in every field of investigation. 

There is, it is true, a part of logic that may be developed some- 
what after the fashion of mathematics. Thus, we may examine 
the two statements: All men are mortal, and Csssar is a man; 
and we may see clearly that, given the truth of these, we must 
admit that Caesar is mortal. We may make a list of possible 
inferences of this kind, and point out under what circumstances 
the truth of two statements implies the truth of a third, and under 
what circumstances the inference cannot be made. Our results 
can be set forth in a system of symbols. As in mathematics, 
we may abstract from the particular things reasoned about, 
and concern ourselves only with the forms of reasoning. This 
gives us the theory of the syllogism; it is a part of logic in which 
the mathematician is apt to feel very much at home. 

But this is by no means all of logic. Let us consider the 
following points : — 

(i) We are not concerned to know only what statements may 
be made on the basis of certain other statements. We want to 
know what is true and what is false. We must ask : Has a man 
the right to set up these particular statements and to reason 
from them? That some men accept as true premises which 
are repudiated by others is an undoubted fact. Thus, it is 
maintained by certain philosophers that we may assume that 
any view of the universe which is repellant to our nature cannot 
be true. Shall we allow this to pass unchallenged ? And in 
ethics, some have held that it is under all circumstances wrong 
to lie; others have denied this, and have held that in certain 
cases — for example, to save life or to prevent great and un- 
merited suffering — lying is permissible. Shall we interest 
ourselves only in the deductions that each man makes from 
his assumed premises, and pay no attention to the truth of the 
premises themselves? 



2 28 An Introduction to Philosophy 

(2) Again. The vast mass of the reasonings that interest 
men are expressed in the language that we all use and not in 
special symbols. But language is a very imperfect instrument, 
and all sorts of misunderstandings are possible to those who 
express their thoughts in it. 

Few men know exactly how much is implied in what they 
are saying. If I say: All men are mortal, and an angel is not 
a man; therefore, an angel is not mortal; it is not at once appar- 
ent to every one in what respect my argument is defective. He 
who argues: Feathers are light; light is contrary to darkness; 
hence, feathers are contrary to darkness; is convicted of error 
without difficulty. But arguments of the same kind, and quite 
as bad, are to be found in learned works on matters less familiar 
to us, and we often fail to detect the fallacy. 

Thus, Herbert Spencer argues, in effect, in the fourth and 
fifth chapters of his " First Principles," as follows: — 
We are conscious of the Unknowable, 
The Unknowable lies behind the veil of phenomena. 
Hence, we are conscious of what Hes behind the veil of phe- 
nomena. 

It is only the critical reader who notices that the Unknow- 
able in the first line is the " raw material of consciousness," 
and the Unknowable in the second is something not in conscious- 
ness at all. The two senses of the word " light " are not more 
different from one another. Such apparent arguments abound, 
and it often requires much acuteness to be able to detect their 
fallacious character. 

When we take into consideration the two points indicated 
above, we see that the logician is at every turn forced to reflect 
upon our knowledge as men do not ordinarily reflect. He is 
led to ask: What is truth? He cannot accept uncritically the 
assumptions which men make; and he must endeavor to be- 
come very clearly conscious of the real meaning and the whole 
meaning of statements expressed in words. Even in the simple 



Logic 229 

logic with which we usually begin our studies, we learn to scruti- 
nize statements in a reflective way; and when we go deeper, 
we are at once in contact with philosophical problems. It is 
evidently our task to attain to a clearer insight into the nature 
of our experience and the meaning of proof than is attainable 
by the unreflective. 

Logic, then, is a reflective science, and it is not surprising 
that it has held its place as one of the philosophical sciences. 



CHAPTER XVII 
PSYCHOLOGY 

69. Psychology and Philosophy. — I think I have said enough 
in Chapter II (§ 10) about what we mean when we speak of 
psychology as a natural science and as an independent discipHne. 
Certainly there are many psychologists who would not care to 
be confused with the philosophers, and there are some that 
regard philosophy with suspicion. 

Nevertheless, psychology is commonly regarded as belonging 
to the philosophical group. That this is the case can scarcely 
be thought surprising when we see how the psychologist himself 
speaks of the relation of his science to philosophy. 

" I have kept," writes Professor James ^ in that delightful 
book which has become the common property of us all, " close 
to the point of view of natural science throughout the book. 
Every natural science assumes certain data uncritically, and 
declines to challenge the elements between which its own ' laws ' 
obtain, and from which its own deductions are carried on. 
Psychology, the science of finite individual minds, assumes as 
its data (i) thoughts and feelings, and (2) a physical world in 
time and space with which they coexist, and which (3) they 
know. Of course, these data themselves are discussable; but 
the discussion of them (as of other elements) is called meta- 
physics and falls outside the province of this book." 

This is an admirable statement of the scope of psychology 
as a natural science, and also of the relations of metaphysics 
to the sciences. But it would not be fair to Professor James to 

^ " Psychology," Preface. 
230 



1 



Psychology 231 

take this sentence alone, and to assume that, in his opinion, it 
is easy to separate psychology altogether from philosophy. 
"The reader," he tells us in the next paragraph, " will in vain 
seek for any closed system in the book. It is mainly a mass 
of descriptive details, running out into queries which only a 
metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope successfully 
to deal with." And in the opening sentence of the preface he 
informs us that some of his chapters are more " metaphysical " 
than is suitable for students going over the subject for the first 
time. 

That the author is right in maintaining that it is not easy 
to draw a clear Hne between philosophy and psychology, and 
to declare the latter wholly independent, I think we must con- 
cede. An independent science should be sure of the things with 
which it is dealing. Where these are vague and indefinite, and 
are the subject of constant dispute, it cannot march forward 
with assurance. One is rather forced to go back and examine 
the data themselves. The beaten track of the special science 
has not been satisfactorily constructed. 

We are forced to admit that the science of psychology has not 
yet emerged from the state in which a critical examination of 
its foundations is necessary, and that the construction of the 
beaten path is still in progress. This I shall try to make clear 
by illustrations. 

The psychologist studies the mind, and his ultimate appeal 
must be to introspection, to a direct observation of mental 
phenomena, and of their relations to external things. Now, 
if the observation of mental phenomena were a simple and an 
easy thing; if the mere fact that we are conscious of sensations 
and ideas impHed that we are clearly conscious of them and are 
in a position to describe them with accuracy, psychology would 
be a much more satisfactory science than it is. 

But we are not thus conscious of our mental life. We can 
and do use our mental states without beino; able to describe them 



232 An Introduction to Philosophy 

accurately. In a sense, we are conscious of what is there, but 
our consciousness is rather dim and vague, and in our attempts 
to give an account of it we are in no Httle danger of giving a false 
account. 

Thus, the psychologist assumes that we perceive both physical 
phenomena and mental — the external world and the mind. 
He takes it for granted that we perceive mental phenomena 
to be related to physical. He is hardly in a position to make 
this assumption, and then to set it aside as a thing he need not 
further consider. Does he not tell us, as a result of his investi- 
gations, that we can know the external world only as it is reflected 
in our sensations, and thus seem to shut the mind up within the 
circle of mental phenomena merely, cutting off absolutely a 
direct knowledge of what is extra-mental ? If we can know only 
mental phenomena, the representatives of things, at first hand, 
how can we tell that they are representatives? and what be- 
comes of the assumption that we perceive that mind is related 
to an external world? 

It may be said, this problem the psychologist may leave to 
the metaphysician. Certainly, it is one of those problems that 
the metaphysician discusses ; it has been treated in Chapter IV. 
But my contention is, that he who has given no thought to the 
matter may easily fall into error as to the very nature of 
mental phenomena. 

For example, when we approach or recede from a physical 
object we have a series of experiences which are recognized as 
sensational. When we imagine a tree or a house we are also 
experiencing a mental phenomenon. All these experiences 
seem plainly to have extension in some sense of the word. We 
appear to perceive plainly part out of part. In so far, these 
mental things seem to resemble the physical things which we 
contrast with what is mental. Shall we say that, because 
these things are mental and not physical, their apparent exten- 
sion is a delusion? Shall we say that they really have no parts? 



Psychology 233 

Such considerations have impelled psychologists of eminence 
to maintain, in fiat contradiction to what seems to be the un- 
equivocal testimony of direct' introspection, that the total con- 
tent of consciousness at any moment must be looked upon as 
an indivisible, part-less unit. 

We cannot, then, depend merely on direct introspection. It 
is too uncertain in its deliverances. If we would make clear 
to ourselves what mental phenomena really are, and how they 
differ from physical phenomena, we must fall back upon the 
reflective analysis of our experience which occupies the meta- 
physician (§ 34). Until we have done this, we are in great dan- 
ger of error. We are actually uncertain of our materials. 

Again. The psychologist speaks of the relation of mind and 
body. Some psychologists incline to be parallelists, some are 
warm advocates of interactionism. Now, any theory of the 
relation of mind to body must depend on observation ultimately. 
If we had not direct experience of a relation between the physi- 
cal and the mental somewhere, no hypothesis on the subject 
would ever have emerged. 

But our experiences are not perfectly clear and unequivocal 
to us. Their significance does not seem to be easily grasped. 
To comprehend it one is forced to that reflective examination 
of experience which is characteristic of the philosopher (Chapter 
IX). 

Here it may again be said: Leave the matter to the meta- 
physician and go on with your psychological work. I answer: 
The psychologist is not in the same position as the botanist 
or the zoologist. He is studying mind in its relation to body. 
It cannot but be unsatisfactory to him to leave that relation 
wholly vague; and, as a matter of fact, he usually takes up with 
one theory or another. We have seen (§ 36) that he may easily 
adopt a theory that leads him to overlook the great difference 
between physical phenomena and mental phenomena, and to 
treat them as though they were the same. This one may do 



234 ^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

in spite of all that introspection has to say about the gulf that 
separates them. 

Psychology is, then, very properly classed among the philo- 
sophical sciences. The psychologist is not sufficiently sure of 
his materials to be able to dispense with reflective thought, 
in many parts of his field. Some day there may come to be a 
consensus of opinion touching fundamental facts, and the science 
may become more independent. A beaten track may be at- 
tained; but that has not yet been done. 

70. The Double Affiliation of Psychology. — In spite of what 
has been said above, we must not forget that psychology is a 
relatively independent science. One may be a useful psycholo- 
gist without knowing much about philosophy. 

As in logic it is possible to write a text-book not greatly dif- 
ferent in spirit and method from text-books concerned with 
the sciences not classed as philosophical, so it is possible to make 
a useful study of mental phenomena without entering upon 
metaphysical analyses. In science, as in common Hfe, we can 
use concepts without subjecting them to careful analysis. 

Thus, our common experience reveals that mind and body 
are connected. We may, for a specific purpose, leave the nature 
of this connection vague, and may pay careful attention to the 
physiological conditions of mental phenomena, studying in 
detail the senses and the nervous system. We may, further, 
endeavor to render our knowledge of mental phenomena more 
full and accurate by experimentation. In doing this we may 
be compelled to make use of elaborate apparatus. Of such 
mechanical aids to investigation our psychological laboratories 
are full. 

It is to such work as this that we owe what is called the " physi- 
ological " and the " experimental " psychology. One can carry 
on such investigations without being a metaphysician. But 
one can scarcely carry them on without having a good knowledge 
of certain sciences not commonly supposed to be closely related 



Psychology 235 

to psychology at all. Thus, one should be trained in chemistry 
and physics and physiology, and should have a working knowl- 
edge of laboratory methods. Moreover, it is desirable to have 
a sujEhcient knowledge of mathematics to enable one to handle 
experimental data. 

The consideration of such facts as these sometimes leads men 
to raise the question : Should psychology affiliate with philosophy 
or with the physical sciences? The issue is an illegitimate one. 
Psychology is one of the philosophical sciences, and cannot 
dispense with reflection; but that is no reason why it should 
not acknowledge a close relation to certain physical sciences 
as well. Parts of the field can be isolated, and one may work 
as one works in the natural sciences generally; but if one does 
nothing more, one's concepts remain unanalyzed, and, as we 
have seen in the previous section, there is some danger of actual 
misconception. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
ETHICS AND ESTHETICS 

71. Common Sense Ethics. — We may, if we choose, study 
the actions of men merely with a view to ascertaining what 
they are and describing them accurately. Something Kke 
this is done by the anthropologist, who gives us an account of 
the manners and customs of the various races of mankind; 
he tells us what is; he may not regard it as within his province 
at all to inform us regarding what ought to he. 

But men do not merely act; they judge their actions in the 
light of some norm or standard, and they distinguish between 
them as right and wrong. The systematic study of actions 
as right and wrong yields us the science of ethics. 

Like psychology, ethics is a special science. It is concerned 
with a somewhat limited field of investigation, and is not to 
be confounded with other sciences. It has a definite aim 
distinct from theirs. And, also like psychology, ethics is classed 
as one of the philosophical sciences, and its relation to philoso- 
phy is supposed to be closer than that of such sciences as phys- 
ics and mathematics. It is fair to ask why this is so. Why 
cannot ethics proceed on the basis of certain assumptions in- 
dependently, and leave to some other discipline the whole 
question of an inquiry into the nature and validity of those 
assumptions? 

About half a century ago Dr. William Whewell, one of the 
most learned of English scholars, wrote a work entitled "The 
Elements of Morahty," in which he attempted to treat the 
science of ethics as it is generally admitted that one may treat 

236 



Ethics and yEs the tics 237 

the science of geometry. The book was rather widely read a 
generation since, but we meet with few references to it in our 
time. 

"MoraHty and the philosophy of morality," argues the au- 
thor, " differ in the same manner and in the same degree as 
geometry and the philosophy of geometry. Of these two 
subjects, geometry consists of a series of positive and definite 
propositions, deduced one from another, in succession, by 
rigorous reasoning, and all resting upon certain definitions 
and self-evident axioms. The philosophy of geometry is quite 
a different subject; it includes such inquiries as these: 
Whence is the cogency of geometrical proof? What is the 
evidence of the axioms and definitions? What are the fac- 
ulties by which we become aware of their truth? and the hke. 
The two kinds of speculation have been pursued, for the most 
part, by two different classes of persons, — the geometers and 
the metaphysicians; for it has been far more the occupation 
of metaphysicians than of geometers to discuss such questions 
as I have stated, the nature of geometrical proofs, geometrical 
axioms, the geometrical faculty, and the like. And if we 
construct a complete system of geometry, it will be almost 
exactly the same, whatever be the views which we take on these 
metaphysical questions." ^ 

Such a system Dr. Whewell wishes to construct in the field 
of ethics. His aim is to give us a view of morality in which 
moral propositions are "deduced from axioms, by successive 
steps of reasoning, so far as to form a connected system of 
moral truth." Such a "sure and connected knowledge of the 
duties of man" would, he thinks, be of the greatest importance. 

In accordance with this purpose. Dr. Whewell assumes that 
humanity, justice, truth, purity, order, earnestness, and moral 
purpose are fundamental principles of human action; and he 
thinks that all who admit as much as this will be able to go 

' Preface. 



238 An Introduction to Philosophy 

on with him in his development of a system of moral rules to 
govern the life of man. 

It would hardly be worth while for me to speak at length 
of a way of treating ethics so little likely to be urged upon the 
attention of the reader who busies himself with the books which 
are appearing in our own day, were it not that we have here 
an admirable illustration of the attempt to teach ethics as 
though it were such a science as geometry. The shortcomings 
of the method become very evident to one who reads the work 
attentively. 

Thus, we are forced to ask ourselves, have we really a col- 
lection of ultimate moral principles which are analogous to 
the axioms of geometry? For example, to take but a single 
instance. Dr. Whewell formulates the Principle of Truth as 
follows: "We must conform to the universal understanding 
among men which the use of language implies " ; ^ and he re- 
marks later: "The rules: Lie not, Perform your promise, are 
of universal validity; and the conceptions of lie and of prom- 
ise are so simple and distinct that, in general, the rules may 
be directly and easily appHed." ^ 

Now, we are struck by the fact that this affirmation of the 
universal validity of the principle of truth is made in a chap- 
ter on " Cases of Conscience," in a chapter concerned with 
what seem to be conflicts between duties; and this chapter is 
followed by one which treats of " Cases of Necessity," i.e. 
cases in which a man is to be regarded as justified in violating 
common rules when there seems to be urgent reason for so 
doing. We are told that the morahst cannot say: Lie not, 
except in great emergencies; but must say: Lie not at all. 
But we are also told that he must grant that there are cases 
of necessity in which transgressions of moral rules are excus- 
able ; and this looks very much as if he said : Go on and do the 
thing while I close my eyes. 

'§269. ='§376. 



Ethics and Esthetics 239 

This hardly seems to give us a "sure and connected knowl- 
edge of the duties of man" deduced from axiomatic principles. 
On what authority shall we suspend for the time being this 
axiomatic principle or that? Is there some deeper principle 
which lends to each of them its authority, and which may, 
for cause, withdraw it? There is no hint of such in the treat- 
ment of ethics which we are considering, and we seem to have 
on our hands, not so much a science, as a collection of practical 
rules, of the scope of which we are more or less in the dark. 

The interesting thing to notice is that this view of ethics is 
very closely akin to that adapted unconsciously by the major- 
ity of the persons we meet who have not interested themselves 
much in ethics as a science. 

By the time that we have reached years of discretion we are 
all in possession of a considerable number of moral maxims. 
We consider it wrong to steal, to lie, to injure our neighbor. 
Such maxims lie in our minds side by side, and we do not com- 
monly think of criticising them. But now and then we face 
a situation in which one maxim seems to urge one course of 
action and another maxim a contrary one. Shall we tell the 
truth and the whole truth, when so doing will bring grave mis- 
fortune upon an innocent person? And now and then we are 
brought to the reaHzation that all men do not admit the valid- 
ity of all our maxims. Judgments differ as to what is right 
and what is wrong. Who shall be the arbiter? Not infre- 
quently a rough decision is arrived at in the assumption that 
we have only to interrogate "conscience" — in the assump- 
tion, in other words, that we carry a watch which can be counted 
upon to give the correct time, even if the timepieces of our 
neighbors are not to be depended upon. 

The common sense ethics cannot be regarded as very sys- 
tematic and consistent, or as very profound. It is a collection 
of working rules, of practical maxims; and, although it is 
impossible to overestimate its value as a guide to life, its 



240 An Introduction to Philosophy 

deficiencies, when it is looked at critically, become evident, I 
think, even to thoughtful persons who are not scientific at all. 

Many writers on ethics have simply tried to turn this collec- 
tion of working rules into a science, somewhat as Dr. Whewell 
has done. This is the peculiar weakness of those who have 
been called the " intuitionalists " — though I must warn the 
reader against assuming that this term has but the one mean- 
ing, and that all those to whom it has been applied should be 
placed in the same class. Here it is used to indicate those who 
maintain that we are directly aware of the validity of certain 
moral principles, must accept them as ultimate, and need only 
concern ourselves with the problem of their application. 

72. Ethics and Philosophy. — When John Locke main- 
tained that there are no "innate practical principles," or in- 
nate moral maxims, he pointed in evidence to the "enormities 
practiced without remorse" in different ages and by different 
peoples. The list he draws up is a curious and an interesting 
one.^ 

In our day it has pretty generally come to be recognized by 
thoughtful men that a man's judgments as to right and wrong 
reflect the phase of civilization, or the lack of it, which he rep- 
resents, and that their significance cannot be understood when 
we consider them apart from their historic setting. This means 
that no man's conscience is set up as an ultimate standard, 
but that every man's conscience is regarded as furnishing ma- 
terial which the science of ethics must take into account. 

May we, broadening the basis upon which we are to build, 
and studying the manners, customs, and moral judgments of 
all sorts and conditions of men, develop an empirical science 
of ethics which will be independent of philosophy ? 

It does not seem that we can do this. We are concerned 
with psychological phenomena, and their nature and signifi- 
cance are by no means beyond dispute. For example, there 

^ " Essay concerning Human Understanding," Book I, Chapter III. 



Ethics and Esthetics 241 

is the feeling of moral obligation of which ethics has so much 
to say. What is this feeling, and what is its authority? Is 
it a thing to be explained ? Can it impel a man, let us say, a 
bigot, to do wrong? And what can we mean by credit and 
discredit, by responsibility and free choice, and other concepts 
of the sort? All this must remain very vague to one who has 
not submitted his ethical concepts to reflective analysis of the 
sort that we have a right to call philosophical. 

Furthermore, it does not seem possible to decide what a man 
should or should not do, without taking into consideration 
the circumstances in which he is placed. The same act may 
be regarded as benevolent or the reverse according to its con- 
text. If we will but grant the validity of the premises from 
which the mediaeval churchman reasoned, we may well ask 
whether, in laying hands violently upon those who dared to 
form independent judgments in matters of religion, he was 
not conscientiously doing his best for his fellow- man. He 
tried by all means to save some, and to what he regarded as 
a most dangerous malady he applied a drastic remedy. By 
what standard shall we judge him? 

There can be no doubt that our doctrine of the whole duty 
of man must be conditioned by our view of the nature of the 
world in which man lives and of man's place in the world. 
Has ethics nothing to do with religion? If we do not beheve 
in God, and if we think that man's life ends with the death of 
the body, it is quite possible that we shall set for him an ethi- 
cal standard which we should have to modify if we adopted 
other beliefs. The relation of ethics to religion is a problem 
that the student of ethics can scarcely set aside. It seems, 
then, that the study of ethics necessarily carries us back to 
world problems which cannot be approached except by the 
path of philosophical reflection. We shall see in Chapter XX 
that the theistic problem certainly belongs to this class. 

It is worthy of our consideration that the vast majority of 



242 An Introduction to Philosophy 

writers on ethics have felt strongly that their science runs out 
into metaphysics. We can scarcely afford to treat their testi- 
mony lightly. Certainly it is not possible for one who has 
no knowledge of philosophy to understand the significance 
of the ethical systems which have appeared in the past. The 
history of ethics may be looked upon as a part of the history 
of philosophy. Only on the basis of some general view as to 
nature and man have men decided what man ought to do. 
As we have seen above, this appears sufficiently reasonable. 

73. .Esthetics. — Of aesthetics, or the science of the beau- 
tiful, I shall say little. There is somewhat the same reason 
for including it among the philosophical sciences that there is 
for including ethics. 

Those who have paid little attention to science or to phi- 
losophy are apt to dogmatize about what is and what is not 
beautiful just as they dogmatize about what is and what is not 
right. They say unhesitatingly: This object is beautiful, and 
that one is ugly. It is as if they said: This one is round, and 
that one square. 

Often it quite escapes their attention that what they now 
regard as beautiful struck them as unattractive a short time 
before; and will, perhaps, when the ceaseless change of the 
fashions has driven it out of vogue, seem strange and unattrac- 
tive once more. Nor do they reflect upon the fact that others, 
who seem to have as good a right to an opinion as they, do not 
agree with them in their judgments; nor upon the further 
fact that the standard of beauty is a thing that has varied from 
age to age, differs widely in different countries, and presents 
minor variations in different classes even in the same community. 

The dogmatic utterances of those who are keenly suscep- 
tible to the aesthetic aspects of things but are not given to re- 
flection stand in striking contrast to the epitome of the popular 
wisdom expressed in the skeptical adage that there is no dis- 
puting about tastes. 



Ethics and Esthetics 243 

We cannot interpret this adage broadly and take it literally, 
for then we should have to admit that men's judgments as to 
the beautiful cannot constitute the material of a science at all, 
and that there can be no such thing as progress in the fine arts. 
The notion of progress implies a standard, and an approxi- 
mation to an ideal. Few would dare to deny that there has 
been progress in such arts as painting and music; and when 
one has admitted so much as this, one has virtually admitted 
that a science of aesthetics is, at least, possible. 

The science studies the facts of the aesthetic life as ethics 
studies the facts of the moral life. It can take no man's taste 
as furnishing a standard: it must take every man's taste as a 
fact of significance. It is driven to reflective analysis — to 
such questions as, what is beauty? and what is meant by 
aesthetic progress? It deals with elusive psychological facts 
the significance of which is not easily grasped. It is a philo- 
sophical science, and is by no means in a position to follow a 
beaten path, dispensing with a reflective analysis of its ma- 
terials. 



CHAPTER XIX 
METAPHYSICS 

74. What is Metaphysics? — The reader has probably al- 
ready remarked that in some of the preceding chapters the 
adjectives "metaphysical" and "philosophical" have been 
used as if they were interchangeable, in certain connections, 
at least. This is justified by common usage; and in the present 
chapter I shall be expected by no one, I think, to prove that 
metaphysics is a philosophical discipline. My task will rather 
be to show how far the words "metaphysics" and "philoso- 
phy" have a different meaning. 

In Chapters III to XI, I have given a general view of the 
problems which present themselves to reflective thought, and 
I have indicated that they are not problems which can con- 
veniently be distributed among the several special sciences. 
Is there an external world? What is it? What are space and 
time? What is the mind ? How are mind and body related ? 
How do we know that there are other minds than ours? etc. 
These have been presented as philosophical problems; and 
when we turn back to the history of speculative thought we 
find that they are just the problems with which the men whom 
we agree to call philosophers have chiefly occupied themselves. 

But when we turn to our treatises on metaphysics, we also 
find that these are the problems there discussed. Such trea- 
tises differ much among themselves, and the problems are not 
presented in the same form or in the same order; but one who 
can look beneath the surface will find that the authors are 
busied with much the same thing — with some or all of the 
problems above mentioned. 

244 



Metaphysics 245 

How, then, does metaphysics differ from philosophy? The 
difference becomes clear to us when we reahze that the word 
philosophy has a broader and looser signification, and that 
metaphysics is, so to speak, the core, the citadel, of philosophy. 

We have seen (Chapter II) that the world and the mind, 
as they seem to be presented in the experience of the plain 
man, do not stand forth with such clearness and distinctness 
that he is able to answer intelligently the questions we wish 
to ask him regarding their nature. It is not merely that his 
information is limited; it is vague and indefinite as well. And 
we have seen, too, that, however the special sciences may 
increase and systematize his information, they do not clear 
away such vagueness. The man still uses such concepts as 
"inner" and "outer," "reality," "the mind," "space," and 
"time," with no very definite notion of what they mean. 

Now, the attempt to clear away this vagueness by the sys- 
tematic analysis of such concepts — in other words, the attempt 
to make a thorough analysis of our experience — is metaphys- 
ics. The metaphysician strives to limit his task as well as he 
may, and to avoid unnecessary excursions into the fields occu- 
pied by the special sciences, even those which he nearest to 
his own, such as psychology and ethics. There is a sense 
in which he may be said to be working in the field of a special 
science, though he is using as the material for his investigations 
concepts which are employed in many sciences; but it is clear 
that his discipline is not a special science in the same sense in 
which geometry' and physics are special sciences. 

Nevertheless, the special sciences stand, as we have already 
seen in the case of several of them, very near to his own. If 
he broadens his view, and deliberately determines to take a 
survey of the field of human knowledge as illuminated by 
the analyses that he has made, he becomes something more 
than a metaphysician; he becomes a philosopher. 

This does not in the least mean that he becomes a storehouse 



246 An Introduction to Philosophy 

of miscellaneous information, and an authority on all the sciences. 
Sometimes the philosophers have attempted to describe the 
world of matter and of mind as though they possessed some 
mysterious power of knowing things that absolved them from 
the duty of traveling the weary road of observation and ex- 
periment that has ended in the sciences as we have them. 
When they have done this, they have mistaken the significance 
of their calling. A philosopher has no more right than another 
man to create information out of nothing. 

But it is possible, even for one who is not acquainted with 
the whole body of facts presented in a science, to take careful 
note of the assumptions upon which that science rests, to 
analyze the concepts of which it makes use, to mark the methods 
which it employs, and to gain a fair idea of its scope and of its 
relation to other sciences. Such a reflection upon our scien- 
tific knowledge is philosophical reflection, and it may result 
in a classification of the sciences, and in a general view of hu- 
man knowledge as a whole. Such a view may be illuminating 
in the extreme; it can only be harmful when its significance 
is misunderstood. 

But, it may be argued, why may not the man of science do 
all this for himself ? Why should he leave it to the philosopher, 
who is presumably less intimately acquainted with the sciences 
than he is? 

To this I answer: The work should, of course, be done by 
the man who will do it best. All our subdivision of labor 
should be dictated by convenience. But I add, that experi- 
ence has shown that the workers in the special sciences have 
not as a rule been very successful when they have tried to 
philosophize. 

Science is an imperious mistress; she demands one's ut- 
most efforts; and when a man turns to philosophical reflection 
merely "by the way," and in the scraps of time at his disposal 
after the day's work is done, his philosophical work is apt to 



Metaphysics 247 

be rather superficial. Moreover, it does not follow that, be- 
cause a man is a good mathematician or chemist or physicist, 
he is gifted with the power of reflective analysis. Then, too, 
such men are apt to be imperfectly acquainted with what has 
been done in the past; and those who are familiar with the 
history of philosophy often have occasion to remark that what 
is laid before them, in ignorance of the fact that it is neither 
new nor original, is a doctrine which has already made its 
appearance in many forms and has been discussed at prodi- 
gious length in the centuries gone by. 

In certain sciences it seems possible to ignore the past, to 
a great extent, at least. What is worth keeping has been kept, 
and there is a solid foundation on which to build for the future. 
But with reflective thought it is not so. There is no accepted 
body of doctrine which we have the right to regard as unas- 
sailable. We should take it as a safe maxim that the reflec- 
tions of men long dead may be profounder and more worthy 
of our study than those urged upon our attention by the men 
of our day. 

And this leads me to make a remark upon the titles given 
to works on metaphysics. It seems somewhat misleading 
to label them: "Outlines of Metaphysics" or "Elements of 
Metaphysics." Such titles suggest that we are deahng with 
a body of doctrine which has met with general acceptance, 
and may be compared with that found in handbooks on the 
special sciences. But we should realize that, when we are 
concerned with the profounder investigations into the nature 
of our experience, we tread upon uncertain ground and many 
differences of opinion obtain. We should, if possible, avoid 
a false semblance of authority. 

75. Epistemology. — We hear a great deal at the present 
day of Epistemology, or the Theory of Knowledge. I have 
not classed it as a distinct philosophical science, for reasons 
which will appear below. 



248 An Introduction to Philosophy 

We have seen in Chapter XVI that it is possible to treat 
of logic in a simple way without growing very metaphysical; 
but we have also seen that when we go deeply into questions 
touching the nature of evidence and what is meant by truth 
and falsity, we are carried back to philosophical reflection at 
once. 

We may, for convenience, group together these deeper ques- 
tions regarding the nature of knowledge and its scope, and call 
the subject of our study "Epistemology." 

But it should be remarked, in the first place, that, when we 
work in this field, we are exercising a reflective analysis of 
precisely the type employed in making the metaphysical analy- 
ses contained in the earlier chapters of this book. We are 
treating our experience as it is not treated in common thought 
and in science. 

And it should be remarked, in the second place, that the 
investigation of our knowledge inevitably runs together with 
an investigation into the nature of things known, of the mind 
and the world. Suppose that I give the titles of the chapters 
in Part III of Mr. Hobhouse's able work on "The Theory of 
Knowledge." They are as follows: Vahdity; the Vahdity of 
Knowledge; the Conception of External Reality; Substance; 
the Conception of Self; Reality as a System; Knowledge and 
Reality; the Grounds of Knowledge and Belief. 

Are not these topics metaphysical? Let us ask ourselves 
how it would affect our views of the validity and of the limits 
of our knowledge, if we were converted to the metaphysical 
doctrines of John Locke, or of Bishop Berkeley, or of David 
Hume, or of Thomas Reid, or of Immanuel Kant. 

We may, then, regard epistemology as a part of logic — 
the metaphysical part — or as a part of metaphysics; it does 
not much matter which we call it, since we mean the same 
thing. But its relation to metaphysics is such that it does not 
seem worth while to call it a separate discipline. 



Metaphysics 249 

Before leaving this subject there is one more point upon 
which I should touch, if only to obviate a possible misunder- 
standing. 

We find in Professor Cornelius's clear Httle book, "An In- 
troduction to Philosophy" (Leipzig, 1903; it has unhappily 
not yet been translated into EngHsh), that metaphysics is repu- 
diated altogether, and epistemology is set in its place. But 
this rejection of metaphysics does not necessarily imply the 
denial of the value of such an analysis of our experience as I 
have in this work called metaphysical. Metaphysics is taken 
to mean, not an analysis of experience, but a groping behind 
the veil of phenomena for some reality not given in experience. 
In other words, what Professor Cornelius condemns is what 
many of the rest of us also condemn under another name. 
What he calls metaphysics, we call bad metaphysics; and what 
he calls epistemology, we call metaphysics. The dispute is 
really a dispute touching the proper name to apply to reflec- 
tive analysis of a certain kind. 

As it is the fashion in certain quarters to abuse metaphysics, 
I set the reader on his guard. Some kinds of metaphysics 
certainly ought to be repudiated under whatever name they 
may be presented to us. 



CHAPTER XX 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 

76. Religion and Reflection. — A man may be through and 
through ethical in his thought and feeling, and yet know nothing 
of the science of ethics. He may be possessed of the finest 
aesthetic taste, and yet may know nothing of the science of 
aesthetics. It is one thing to be good, and another to know 
clearly what goodness means ; it is one thing to love the beauti- 
ful, and another to know how to define it. 

Just so a man may be thoroughly religious, and may, never- 
theless, have reflected very little upon his religious belief and 
the foundations upon which it rests. This does not mean that 
his belief is without foundation. It may have a firm basis or 
it may not. But whatever the case may be, he is not in a posi- 
tion to say much about it. He feels that he is right, but he cannot 
prove it. The man is, I think we must admit, rather blind as 
to the full significance of his position, and he is, in consequence, 
rather helpless. 

Such a man is menaced by certain dangers. We have seen 
in the chapter on ethics that men are by no means at one in 
their judgments as to the rightness or wrongness of given actions. 
And it requires a very little reflection to teach us that men are 
not at one in their religious notions. God and His nature, the 
relation of God to man, what the religious life should be, these 
things are the subject of much dispute; and some men hold 
opinions regarded by others as not merely erroneous but highly 
pernicious in their influence. 

Shall a man simply assume that the opinions which he hap- 

250 



The Philosophy of Religion 251 

pens to hold are correct, and that all who differ with him are 
in error? He has not framed his opinions quite independently 
for himself. We are all influenced by what we have inherited 
from the past, and what we inherit may be partly erroneous, 
even if we be right in the main. Moreover, we are all hable to 
prejudices, and he who has no means of distinguishing such 
from sober truths may admit into his creed many errors. The 
lesson of history is very instructive upon this point. The fact 
is that a man's reHgious notions reflect the position which he 
occupies in the development of civiHzation very much as do his 
ethical notions. 

Again. Even supposing that a man has enlightened notions 
and is living a rehgious Hfe that the most instructed must ap- 
prove; if he has never reflected, and has never tried to make 
clear to himself just what he really does beheve and upon what 
grounds he believes it, how will it be with him when his position 
is attacked by another? Men are, as I have said, not at one in 
these matters, and there are few or none of the doctrines put 
forward as religions that have not been attacked again and 
again. 

Now, those who depend only upon an instinctive feeling may 
be placed in the very painful position of seeing no answer to 
the objections brought against them. What is said may seem 
plausible ; it may even seem true, and is it right for a man to 
oppose what appears to be the truth? One may be shocked and 
pained, and may feel that he who makes the assault cannot 
be right, and yet may be forced to admit that a relentless logic, 
or what presents itself as such, has every appearance of estab- 
lishing the repellent truth that robs one of one's dearest posses- 
sion. The situation is an unendurable one; it is that of the 
man who guards a treasure and recognizes that there is no lock 
on the door. 

Surely, if there is error mixed with truth in our religious 
beliefs, it is desirable that we should have some way of distin- 



252 An Introduction to Philosophy 

guishing between the truth and the error. And if our beliefs 
really have a foundation, it is desirable that we should know 
what that foundation is, and should not be at the mercy of every 
passer-by who takes the notion to throw a stone at us. But 
these desirable ends, it seems clear, cannot be attained without 
ref,ection. 

77. The Philosophy of Religion. — The reflection that busies 
itself with these things results in what is called the philosophy 
of religion. To show that the name is an appropriate one and 
that we are concerned with a philosophical discipline, I shall 
take up for a moment the idea of God, which most men will 
admit has a very important place in our conception of religion. 

Does God exist? We may feel very sure that He does, and 
yet be forced to admit that the evidence of His existence is not 
so clear and undeniable as to compel the assent of every one. 
We do not try to prove the existence of the men we meet and 
who talk to us. No one thinks of denying their existence; 
it is taken for granted. Even the metaphysician, when he takes 
up and discusses the question whether we can prove the exist- 
ence of any mind beyond our own, does not seriously doubt 
whether there are other minds or not. It is not so much what 
we know, as how we know it, that interests him. 

But with the existence of God it is different. That men do 
not think that an examination of the evidence can be dispensed 
with is evident from the books that are written and lectures that 
are delivered year after year. There seem to be honest differ- 
ences of opinion, and we feel compelled to offer men proofs — 
to show that belief is reasonable. 

How shall we determine whether this world in which we live 
is such a world that we may take it as a revelation of God ? 
And of what sort of a Being are we speaking when we use the 
word " God " ? The question is not an idle one, for men's 
conceptions have differed widely. There is the savage, with 
a conception that strikes the modern civiHzed man as altogether 



The Philosophy of Religion 253 

inadequate; there is the thoughtful man of our day, who has 
inherited the reflections of those who have Hved in the ages 
gone by. 

And there is the philosopher, or, perhaps, I should rather say, 
there are the philosophers. Have they not conceived of God 
as a group of abstract notions, or as a something that may best 
be described as the Unknowable, or as the Substance which is 
the identity of thought and extension, or as the external world 
itself ? All have not sinned in this way, but some have, and they 
are not men whom we can ignore. 

If we turn from all such notions and, in harmony with the 
faith of the great body of religious men in the ages past, some 
of whom v/ere philosophers but most of whom were not, chng 
close to the notion that God is a mind or spirit, and must be con- 
ceived according to the analogy, at least, of the human mind, 
the mind we most directly know — if we do this, we are still 
confronted by problems to which the thoughtful man cannot 
refuse attention. 

What do we mean by a mind ? This is a question to which 
one can scarcely give an intelligent answer unless one has exer- 
cised one's faculty of philosophic reflection. And upon what 
sort of evidence does one depend in establishing the existence 
of minds other than one's own? This has been discussed 
at length in Chapter X, and the problem is certainly a meta- 
physical one. And if we believe that the Divine Mind is not 
subject to the limitations which confine the human, how shall 
we conceive it? The question is an important one. Some of 
the philosophers and theologians who have tried to free the 
Divine Mind from such limitations have taken away every posi- 
tive mark by which we recognize a mind to be such, and have 
left us a naked " Absolute " which is no better than a labeled 
vacuum. 

Moreover, we cannot refuse to consider the question of God's 
relation to the world. This seems to lead back to the broader 



2 54 An Introduction to Philosophy 

question: How are we to conceive of any mind as related to 
the world ? What is the relation between mind and matter? 
If any subject of inquiry may properly be called metaphysical, 
surely this may be. 

We see, then, that there is httle wonder that the thoughtful 
consideration of the facts and doctrines of religion has taken 
its place among the philosophical sciences. Esthetics has been 
called applied psychology; and I think it is scarcely too much 
to say that we are here concerned with applied metaphysics, 
with the attempt to obtain a clear understanding of the sig- 
nificance of the facts of religion in the light of those ultimate 
analyses which reveal to us the real nature of the world of matter 
and of minds. 



CHAPTER XXI 
PHILOSOPHY AND THE OTHER SCIENCES 

78, The Philosophical and the Non-philosophical Sciences. — 

We have seen in the preceding chapters that certain of the sci- 
ences can scarcely be cultivated successfully in complete separa- 
tion from philosophy. It has also been indicated in various 
places that the relation of other sciences to philosophy is not so 
close. 

Thus, the sciences of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry may 
be successfully prosecuted by a man who has reflected little 
upon the nature of numbers and who has never asked himself 
seriously what he means by space. The assumptions which he 
is justified in making, and the kind of operations which he has 
the right to perform, do not seem, as a rule, to be in doubt. 

So it is also in the sciences of chemistry and physics. There 
is nothing to prevent the chemist or the physicist from being a 
philosopher, but he is not compelled to be one. He may push 
forward the investigations proper to his profession regardless 
of the type of philosophy which it pleases him to adopt. Whether 
he be a realist or an idealist, a dualist or a monist, he should, 
as chemist or physicist, treat the same sort of facts in the same 
sort of a way. His path appears to be laid out for him, and he 
can do work the value of which is undisputed by traveling 
quietly along it, and without stopping to consider consciously 
what kind of a path it is. There are many who work in this 
way, and they succeed in making important contributions to 
human knowledge. 

Such sciences as these I call the non-philosophical sciences 

255 



256 An Introduction to Philosophy 

to distinguish them from the group of sciences I have been 
discussing at length. What marks them out is, that the facts 
with which the investigator has to deal are known by him with 
sufficient clearness to leave him usually in little doubt as to the 
use which he can make of them. His knowledge is clear enough 
for the purpose in hand, and his work is justified by its results. 
What is the relation of such sciences as these to philosophy? 

79. The Study of Scientific Principles and Methods. — It is 
one thing to have the instinct of the investigator and to be able 
to feel one's way along the road that leads to new knowledge 
of a given kind, and it is another thing to have the reflective 
turn of mind that makes one clearly conscious of just what one 
has been doing and how one has been doing it. Men reasoned 
before there was a science of logic, and the sciences made their 
appearance before what may be called the logic of the sciences 
had its birth. 

" It may be truly asserted," writes Professor Jevons,^ " that 
the rapid progress of the physical sciences during the last three 
centuries has not been accompanied by a corresponding advance 
in the theory of reasoning. Physicists speak familiarly of 
Scientific Method, but they could not readily describe what they 
mean by that expression. Profoundly engaged in the study 
of particular classes of natural phenomena, they are usually too 
much engrossed in the immense and ever accumulating details 
of their special sciences to generalize upon the methods of reason- 
ing which they unconsciously employ Yet few will deny that 
these methods of reasoning ought to be studied, especially by 
those who endeavor to introduce scientific order into less suc- 
cessful and methodical branches of knowledge." 

Professor Jevons suggests that it is lack of time and attention 
that prevents the scientific investigator from attaining to a clear 
conception of what is meant by scientific method. This has 
something to do with it, but I think we may also maintain that 

^ "The Principles of Science," London, 1874, Preface. 



Philosophy and the Other Sciences 257 

the work of the investigator and that of the critic are somewhat 
different in kind, and require somewhat different powers of 
mind. We find a parallel to this elsewhere. Both in literature 
and in art men may be in the best sense productive, and yet may 
be poor critics. We are often wofully disappointed when we 
attend a lecture on poetry by a poet, or one on painting by an 
artist. 

It may be said: If what is maintained above regarding the 
possibility of prosecuting scientific researches without having 
recourse to reflective thought is true, why should the man of 
science care whether the principles and methods of the non- 
philosophical sciences are investigated or are merely taken for 
granted ? 

I answer: It should be observed that the statements made 
in the last section were somewhat guarded. I have used the 
expressions " as a rule " and " usually." I have spoken thus 
because one can work in the way described, without danger of 
error, only where a beaten track has been attained and is fol- 
lowed. In Chapter XVI it was pointed out that even in the 
mathematical sciences one may be forced to reflect upon the 
significance of one's symbols. As I write this, a pamphlet comes 
to hand which is concerned to prove that " every cause is poten- 
tially capable of producing several effects," and proves it by 
claiming that the square root of four (V4) is a cause which may 
have as ejject either two (2) or minus two ( — 2). 

Is this mathematical reasoning? Are mathematical relations 
ever those of cause and effect? And may one on the basis of 
such reasonings claim that in nature the relation of cause and 
effect is not a fixed and invariable one? 

Even where there is a beaten track, there is some danger that 
men may wander from it. And on the confines of our knowledge 
there are fields in which the accepted road is yet to be estab- 
lished. Science makes constant use of hypotheses as an aid to 
investigation. What hypotheses may one frame, and what 



258 An Introduction to Philosophy 

are inadmissible? How important an investigation of this 
question may be to the worker in certain branches of science 
will be clear to one who will read with attention Professor 
Poincare's brilHant little work on " Science and Hypothesis." ^ 

There is no field in art, literature, or science in which the work 
of the critic is wholly superfluous. "There are periods in the 
growth of science," writes Professor Pearson in his deservedly 
popular work, "The Grammar of Science," ^ "when it is well 
to turn our attention from its imposing superstructure and to 
examine carefully its foundations. The present book is pri- 
marily intended as a criticism of the fundamental concepts of 
modern science, and as such finds its justification in the motto 
placed upon its title-page." The motto in question is a quota- 
tion from the French philosopher Cousin: " Criticism is the life 
of science." 

We have seen in Chapter XVI that a work on logic may be a 
comparatively simple thing. It may describe the ways in which 
men reason when they reason correctly, and may not go deep 
into metaphysical questions. On the other hand, it may be 
deeply metaphysical. 

When we approach the part of logic which deals with the 
principles and methods of the sciences, this difference is forced 
upon our attention. One may set forth the assumptions upon 
which a science rests, and may describe the methods of investi- 
gation employed, without going much below the plane of com- 
mon thought. As a type of such works I may mention the useful 
treatise by Professor Jevons cited earlier in this chapter. 

On the other hand, our investigations may be more profound, 
and we may scrutinize the very foundations upon which a science 
rests. Both the other works referred to illustrate this method 
of procedure. 

For example, in "The Grammar of Science," we find our 

* English translation, New York, 1905. 
^ Second edition, London, 1900. 



Philosophy and the Other Sciences 259 

author discussing, under the title "The Facts of Science," such 
problems as the following: the Reality of Things; Sense- 
impressions and Consciousness; the Nature of Thought; the 
External Universe; Sensations as the Ultimate Source of the 
Materials of Knowledge; and the Futihty of "Things-in- 
themselves." The philosophical character of such discussions 
does not need to be pointed out at length. 



VI. ON THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 

CHAPTER XXII 

THE VALUE OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 

80. The Question of Practical Utility. — Why should men 
study philosophy ? The question is a natural one, for man is a 
rational being, and when the worth of a thing is not at once 
evident to him, he usually calls for proof of its worth. Our 
professional schools, with the exception of schools of theology, 
usually pay little attention to philosophical studies; but such 
studies occupy a strong position in our colleges, and a vast 
number of persons not students in the technical sense think it 
worth while to occupy themselves with them more or less. 
Wherever liberal studies are prosecuted they have their place, 
and it is an honored place. Is this as it should be? 

Before we ask whether any given study is of practical value, 
it is wise to determine what the word *' practical " shall be 
taken to mean. Shall we say that we may call practical only 
such learning as can be turned to direct account in earning 
money later? If we restrict the meaning of the word in this 
way, we seem to strike a blow at liberal studies in general. 

Thus, no one would think of maintaining that the study of 
mathematics is not of practical value — sometimes and to some 
persons. The physicist and the engineer need to know a good 
deal about mathematics. But how is it with the merchant, 
the lawyer, the clergyman, the physician? How much of their 
algebra, geometry, and trigonometry do these remember after 
they have become absorbed in the practice of their several 

260 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 261 

callings, and how often do they find it necessary to use anything 
beyond certain simple rules of arithmetic? 

Sometimes we are tempted to condemn the study of the clas- 
sics as unpractical, and to turn instead to the modern languages 
and to the physical sciences. Now, it is, of course, a fair ques- 
tion to ask what should and what should not be regarded as 
forming part of a liberal education, and I shall make no effort 
to decide the question here. But it should be borne well in 
mind that one cannot decide it by determining what studies 
are practical in the sense of the word under discussion. 

If we keep strictly to this sense, the modern languages are to 
the majority of Americans of little more practical value than are 
the Latin and Greek. We scarcely need them except when we 
travel abroad, and when we do that we find that the concierge 
and the waiter use English with surprising fluency. As for the 
sciences, those who expect to earn a living through a knowledge 
of them, seek, as a rule, that knowledge in a technical or profes- 
sional school, and the rest of us can enjoy the fruit of their labors 
without sharing them. It is a popular fallacy that because cer- 
tain studies have a practical value to the world at large, they 
must necessarily have a practical value to every one, and can be 
recommended to the individual on that account. It is worth 
while to sit down quietly and ask oneself how many of the bits 
of information acquired during the course of a liberal education 
are directly used in the carrying on of a given business or in 
the practice of a given profession. 

Nevertheless, we all believe that liberal education is a good 
thing for the individual and for the race. One must not too 
much restrict the meaning of the word " practical." A civilized 
state composed of men who know nothing save what has a direct 
bearing upon their especial work in life is an absurdity; it can- 
not exist. There must be a good deal of general enlightenment 
and there must be a considerable number of individuals who 
have enjoyed a high measure of enlightenment. 



262 An hitroduction to Philosophy 

This becomes clear if we consider the part played in the Hfe 
of the state by the humblest tradesman. If he is to be success- 
ful, he must be able to read, write, and keep his accounts, and 
make, let us say, shoes. But when we have said this, we have 
summed him up as a workman, but not as a man, and he is 
also a man. He may marry, and make a good or a bad husband, 
and a good or a bad father. He stands in relations to his neigh- 
borhood, to the school, and to the church ; and he is not without 
his influence. He may be temperate or intemperate, frugal or 
extravagant, law-abiding or the reverse. He has his share, and 
no small share, in the government of his city and of his state. 
His influence is indeed far-reaching, and that it may be an 
influence for good, he is in need of all the intellectual and moral 
enlightenment that we can give him. It is of the utmost prac- 
tical utility to the state that he should know a vast number of 
things which have no direct bearing upon the making and mend- 
ing of shoes. 

And if this is true in the case of the tradesman, it is scarcely 
necessary to point out that the physician, the lawyer, the clergy- 
man, and the whole army of those whom we regard as the leaders 
of men and the molders of public opinion have spheres of 
non-professional activity of great importance to the state. They 
cannot be mere specialists if they would. They must influence 
society for good or ill; and if they are ignorant and unenlightened, 
their influence cannot be good. 

When we consider the life of man in a broad way, we see 
how essential it is that many men should be brought to have a 
share in what has been gained by the long travail of the centuries 
past. It will not do to ask at every step whether they can put 
to direct professional use every bit of information gained. 
Literature and science, sweetness and Hght, beauty and truth, 
these are the heritage of the modern world; and unless these 
permeate its very being, society must undergo degeneration. 
It is this conviction that has led to the high appreciation accorded 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 263 

by intelligent men to courses of liberal study, and among such 
courses those which we have recognized as philosophical must 
take their place. 

81. Why Philosophical Studies are Useful. — But let us ask 
a little more specifically what is to be gained by pursuing dis- 
tinctively philosophical studies. Why should those who go to 
college, or intelligent persons who cannot go to college, care to 
interest themselves in logic and ethics, psychology and meta- 
physics? Are not these studies rather dry, in the first place, and 
rather profitless, in the second ? 

As to the first point, I should stoutly maintain that if they are 
dry, it is somebody's fault. The most sensational of novels 
would be dry if couched in the language which some philosophers 
have seen fit to use in expressing their thoughts. He who defines 
" existence " as " the still and simple precipitate of the oscilla- 
tion between beginning to be and ceasing to be " has done his 
best to alienate our affections from the subject of his predilection. 

But it is not in the least necessary to talk in this way about 
matters philosophical. He who is not a slave to tradition can 
use plain and simple language. To be sure, there are some sub- 
jects, especially in the field of metaphysics, into which the stu- 
dent cannot expect to see very deeply at the outset of his studies. 
Men do not expect to understand the more difficult problems of 
mathematics without making a good deal of preparation; but, 
unhappily, they sometimes expect to have the profoundest 
problems of metaphysics made luminous to them in one or two 
popular lectures. 

Philosophical studies are not dry, when men are properly 
taught, and are in a position to understand what is said. They 
deal with the most fascinating of problems. It is only neces- 
sary to pierce through the husk of words which conceals the 
thoughts of the philosopher, and we shall find the kernel pala- 
table, indeed. Nor are such studies profitless, to take up our 
second point. Let us see what we may gain from them. 



264 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Let us begin with logic — the traditional logic commonly 
taught to beginners. Is it worth while to study this? Surely 
it is. No one who has not tried to introduce the average under- 
graduate to logic can realize how blindly he uses his reasoning 
powers, how unconscious he is of the full meaning of the sen- 
tences he employs, how easily he may be entrapped by fallacious 
reasonings where he is not set on his guard by some preposterous 
conclusion touching matters with which he is familiar. 

And he is not merely unconscious of the lapses in his processes 
of reasoning, and of his imperfect comprehension of the signifi- 
cance of his statements; he is unconscious also of the mass of 
inherited and acquired prejudices, often quite indefensible, 
which he unquestioningly employs as premises. 

He fairly represents the larger world beyond the walls of the 
college. It is a world in which prejudices are assumed as 
premises, and loose reasonings pass current and are unchal- 
lenged until they beget some unpalatable conclusion. It is 
a world in which men take little pains to think carefully and 
accurately unless they are dealing with something touching 
which it is practically inconvenient to make a mistake. 

He who studies logic in the proper way is not filling his mind 
with useless facts; he is simply turning the hght upon his own 
thinking mind, and realizing more clearly what he has always 
done rather blindly and blunderingly. He may completely 
forget the 

"Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferioque prions," 

and he may be quite unable to give an account of the moods 
and figures of the syllogism; but he cannot lose the critical 
habit if he once has acquired it, and he cannot but be on his 
guard against himself as well as against others. 

There is a keen pleasure in gaining such insight. It gives 
a feeling of freedom and power, and rids one of that horrid 
sense that, although this or that bit of reasoning is certainly 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 265 

bad, it is impossible to tell just what is the matter with it. And 
as for its practical utihty, if it is desirable to get rid of preju- 
dice and confusion, and to possess a clear and reasonable mind, 
then anything that makes for this must be of value. 

Of the desirability that all who can afford the luxury of a 
liberal education should do some serious reading in ethics, it 
seems hardly necessary to speak. The deficiencies of the ethics 
of the unreflective have already been touched upon in Chapter 
XVIII. 

But I cannot forbear dwelling upon it again. What thought- 
ful man is not struck with the variety of ethical standards which 
obtain in the same community? The clergyman who has a 
strong sense of responsibility for the welfare of his flock is some- 
times accused of not sufficiently realizing the importance of 
a frank expression of the whole truth about things; the man 
of science, whose duty it seems to be to peer into the mysteries 
of the universe, and to tell what he sees or what he guesses, is 
accused of an indifference to the effect which his utterances 
may have upon the less enlightened who hear him speak; 
many criticise the lawyer for a devotion to the interests of his 
client which is at times in doubtful harmony with the interests 
of justice in the larger sense; in the business world commercial 
integrity is exalted, and lapses from the ethical code which do 
not assail this cardinal virtue are not always regarded with equal 
seriousness. 

It is as though men elected to worship at the shrine of a 
particular saint, and were inchned to overlook the claims of 
others. For all this there is, of course, a reason; such things 
are never to be looked upon as mere accident. But this does 
not mean that these more or less conflicting standards are all 
to be accepted as satisfactory and as ultimate. It is inevitable 
that those who study ethics seriously, who really reflect upon 
ethical problems, should sometimes criticise the judgments of 
their fellow-men rather unfavorably. 



266 An Introduction to Philosophy 

Of such independent criticism many persons have a strong 
distrust. I am reminded here of an eminent mathematician 
who maintained that the study of ethics has a tendency to dis- 
tort the student's Judgments as to what is right and what is 
wrong. He had observed that there is apt to be some divergence 
of opinion between those who think seriously upon morals and 
those who do not, and he gave the preference to the unthinking 
majority. 

Now, there is undoubtedly danger that the independent 
thinker may be betrayed into eccentricities of opinion which 
are unjustifiable and are even dangerous. But it seems a 
strange doctrine that it is, on the whole, safer not to think, but 
rather to drift on the stream of public opinion. In other fields 
we are not inclined to believe that the ignorant man, who has 
given no especial attention to a subject, is the one likely to be 
right. Why should it be so in morals? 

That the youth who goes to college to seek a liberal education 
has a need of ethical studies becomes very plain when we come 
to a realization of the curious limitations of his ethical training 
as picked up from his previous experience of the world. He 
has some very definite notions as to right and wrong. He is 
as ready to maintain the desirability of benevolence, justice, and 
veracity, as was Bishop Butler, who wrote the famous " Anal- 
ogy "; although, to be sure, he is most inarticulate when called 
upon to explain what constitutes benevolence, justice, or verac- 
ity. But the strangest thing is, that he seems to place some 
of the most important decisions of his whole life quite outside 
the realm of right and wrong. 

He may admit that a man should not undertake to be a clergy- 
man, unless he possesses certain qualifications of mind and char- 
acter which evidently qualify him for that profession. But he 
does not see why he has not the right to become a wearisome 
professor or an incompetent physician, if he chooses to enter 
upon such a career. Is a man not free to take up what profes- 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 267 

sion he pleases? He must take the risk, of course; but if he 
fails, he fails. 

And when he is asked to consider from the point of view of 
ethics the question of marriage and its responsibilities, he is at 
first inclined to consider the whole subject as rather a matter 
for jest. Has a man not the right to marry or remain single 
exactly as he pleases? And is he not free to marry any one 
whom he can persuade to accept him? To be sure, he should 
be a little careful about marrying quite out of his class, and he 
should not be hopelessly careless about money matters. Thus, 
a decision, which may affect his whole life as much as any other 
that he can be called upon to make, which may practically 
make it or mar it, is treated as though it were not a matter of 
grave concern, but a private affair, entailing no serious conse- 
quences to any one and calling for no reflection. 

I wish it could be said that the world outside of the college 
regarded these matters in another light. But the student faith- 
fully represents the opinions current in the community from 
which he comes. And he represents, unhappily, the teachings 
of the stage and of the world of current fiction. The influence 
of these is too often on the side of inconsiderate passion, which 
stirs our sympathy and which lends itself to dramatic effect. 
With the writers of romance the ethical philosophers have an 
ancient quarrel. 

It may be said: But the world gets along very well as it is, 
and without brooding too much upon ethical problems. To 
this we may answer: Does the world get along so very well, 
after all? Are there no evils that foresight and some firmness 
of character might have obviated? And when we concern 
ourselves with the educated classes, at least, the weight of whose 
influence is enormous, is it too much to maintain that they should 
do some reading and thinking in the field of ethics? should strive 
to attain to clear vision and correct judgment on the whole 
subject of man's duties? 



268 An IntrodMction to Philosophy 

Just at the present time, when psychological studies have 
so great a vogue, one scarcely feels compelled to make any sort 
of an apology for them. It is assumed on all hands that it is 
desirable to study psychology, and courses of lectures are mul- 
tiplied in all quarters. 

Probably some of this interest has its root in the fallacy 
touched upon earlier in this chapter. The science of psychology 
has revolutionized educational theory. When those of us who 
have arrived at middle life look back and survey the tedious 
and toilsome path along which we were unwillingly driven in 
our schoolboy days, and then see how smooth and pleasant it 
has been made since, we are impelled to honor all who have 
contributed to this result. Moreover, it seems very clear that 
teachers of all grades should have some acquaintance with the 
nature of the minds that they are laboring to develop, and that 
they should not be left to pick up their information for them- 
selves — a task sufficiently difficult to an unobservant person. 

These considerations furnish a sufficient ground for extolling 
the science of psychology, and for insisting that studies in it 
should form some part of the education of a teacher. But 
why should the rest of us care for such studies? 

To this one may answer, in the first place, that nearly all of 
us have, or ought to have, some responsibility for the education 
of children; and, in the second, that we deal with the minds of 
others every day in every walk in life, and it can certainly do 
no harm to have our attention called to the way in which minds 
function. To be sure, some men are by nature tactful, and 
instinctively conscious of how things strike the minds of those 
about them. But even such persons may gain helpful sugges- 
tions, and, at least, have the habit of attention to the mental 
processes of others confirmed in them. How often we are im- 
pressed at church, at the public lecture, and in private conver- 
sations, with the fact that the speaker lives in blissful uncon- 
sciousness of what can be understood by or can possibly interest 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 269 

his hearers! For the confirmed bore, there is, perhaps, no 
cure ; but it seems as though something might be done for those 
who are afflicted to a minor degree. 

And this brings me to another consideration, which is that 
a proper study of psychology ought to be of service in reveahng 
to a man his own nature. It should show him what he is, and 
this is surely a first step toward becoming something better. 
It is wonderful how blind men may be with regard to what passes 
in their own minds and with regard to their own peculiarities. 
When they learn to reflect, they come to a clearer consciousness 
of themselves — it is as though a lamp were lighted within them. 
One may, it is true, study psychology without attaining to any 
of the good results suggested above; but, for that matter, there 
is no study which may not be pursued in a profitless way, if 
the teacher be sufficiently unskilled and the pupil sufficiently 
thoughtless. 

82. Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Religion. — Perhaps 
it will be said: For such philosophical studies as the above a 
good defense may perhaps be made, but can one defend in the 
same way the plunge into the obscurities of metaphysics? In 
this field no two men seem to be wholly agreed, and if they were, 
what would it signify? Whether we call ourselves monists or 
dualists, idealists or realists, Lockians or Kantians, must we 
not live and deal with the things about us in much the same way? 

Those who have dipped into metaphysical studies deeply 
enough to see what the problems discussed really are ; who have 
been able to reach the ideas concealed, too often, under a rather 
forbidding terminology; who are not of the dogmatic turn of 
mind which insists upon unquestioned authority and is repelled 
by the uncertainties which must confront those who give them- 
selves to reflective thought, — these will hardly need to be per- 
suaded that it is desirable to give some attention to the question: 
What sort of a world, after all, is this world in which we hve? 
What is its meaning? 



270 An Introduction to Philosophy 

To many men the impulse to peer into these things is over- 
powering, and the pleasure of feeling their insight deepen is 
extremely keen. What deters us in most instances is not the 
conviction that such investigations are not, or should not be, 
interesting, but rather the difficulty of the approach. It is not 
easy to follow the path which leads from the world of common 
thought into the world of philosophical reflection. One be- 
comes bewildered and discouraged at the outset. Sometimes, 
after listening to the directions of guides who disagree among 
themselves, we are tempted to believe that there can be no 
certain path to the goal which we have before us. 

But, whatever the difficulties and uncertainties of our task, 
a little reflection must show that it is not one which has no 
significance for human life. 

Men can, it is true, eat and sleep and go through the routine 
of the day, without giving thought to science or religion or 
philosophy, but few will defend such an existence. As a matter 
of fact, those who have attained to some measure of intellectual 
and moral development do assume, consciously or unconsciously, 
some rather definite attitude toward life, and this is not inde- 
pendent of their conviction as to what the world is and means. 

Metaphysical speculations run out into the philosophy of 
religion; and, on the other hand, religious emotions and ideals 
have again and again prompted men to metaphysical construc- 
tion. A glance at history shows that it is natural to man to 
embrace some attitude toward the system of things, and to try 
to justify this by reasoning. Vigorous and independent minds 
have given birth to theories, and these have been adopted by 
others. The influence of such theories upon the evolution of 
humanity has been enormous. 

Ideas have ruled and still rule the world, some of them very 
abstract ideas. It does not follow that one is uninfluenced by 
them, when one has no knowledge of their source or of their 
original setting. They become part of the intellectual heritage 



The Value of the Study of Philosophy 271 

of us all, and we sometimes suppose that we are responsible for 
them ourselves. Has not the fact that an idealistic or a mate- 
riahstic type of thought has been current at a particular time 
influenced the outlook on life of many who have themselves 
devoted little attention to philosophy? It would be interesting 
to know how many, to whom Spencer is but a name, have felt 
the influence of the agnosticism of which he was the apostle. 

I say this without meaning to criticise here any of the types of 
doctrine referred to. My thesis is only that philosophy and 
life go hand in hand, and that the prying into the deeper mys- 
teries of the universe cannot be regarded as a matter of no prac- 
tical moment. Its importance ought to be admitted even by 
the man who has little hope that he will himself be able to attain 
to a doctrine wholly satisfactory and wholly unshakable. 

For, if the study of the problems of metaphysics does nothing 
else for a given individual, it, at least, enables him to compre- 
hend and criticise intelligently the doctrines which are presented 
for his acceptance by others. It is a painful thing to feel 
quite helpless in the face of plausible reasonings which may 
threaten to rob us of our most cherished hopes, or may tend to 
persuade us of the vanity of what we have been accustomed to 
regard as of highest worth. If we are quite unskilled in the 
examination of such doctrines, we may be captured by the 
loosest of arguments — witness the influence of Spencer's 
argument for the "Unknowable," in the "First Principles"; 
and if we are ignorant of the history of speculative thought, 
we may be carried away by old and exploded notions which 
pose as modern and impressive only because they have been 
given a modern dress. 

We can, of course, refuse to listen to those who would talk 
with us. But this savors of bigotry, and the world will certainly 
not grow wiser, if men generally cultivate a blind adherence 
to the opinions in which they happen to be brought up. 
A cautious conservatism is one thing, and blind obstinacy is 



272 An Introduction to Philosophy 

another. To the educated man (and it is probable that others 
will have to depend on opinions taken at second hand) a better 
way of avoiding error is open. 

Finally, it will not do to overlook the broadening influence 
of such studies as we are discussing. How dogmatically men 
are in the habit of expressing themselves upon those obscure 
and difiicult problems which deal with matters that lie on the 
confines of human knowledge ! Such an assumption of knowl- 
edge cannot but make us uncomprehending and unsympathetic. 

There are many subjects upon which, if we hold an opinion 
at all, we should hold it tentatively, waiting for more light, and 
retaining a willingness to be enlightened. Many a bitter and 
fruitless quarrel might be avoided, if more persons found it 
possible to maintain this philosophical attitude of mind. Phi- 
losophy is, after all, reflection, and the reflective man must 
realize that he is probably as liable to error as are other men. 
He is not infallible, nor has the limit of human knowledge been 
attained in his day and generation. He who realizes this will 
not assume that his neighbor is always wrong, and he will come 
to have that wide, conscientious tolerance, which is not indiffer- 
ence, but which is at the farthest remove from the zeal of mere 
bigotry. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
WHY WE SHOULD STUDY THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 

83. The Prominence given to the Subject. — When one re- 
flects upon the number of lecture courses given every year at 
our universities and colleges on the history of philosophy, one 
is struck by the fact that philosophy is not treated as are most 
other subjects with which the student is brought into contact. 

If we study mathematics, or chemistry, or physics, or physi- 
ology, or biology, the effort is made to lay before us in a con- 
venient form the latest results which have been attained in those 
sciences. Of their history very Httle is said; and, indeed, as 
we have seen (§ 6), lectures on the history of the inductive 
sciences are apt to be regarded as philosophical in their char- 
acter and aims rather than as merely scientific. 

The interest in the history of philosophy is certainly not a 
diminishing one. Text-books covering the whole field or a 
part of it are multiplied; extensive studies are made and pub-, 
lished covering the work- of individual philosophers; innumer- 
able historical discussions make their appearance in the pages 
of current philosophical journals. No student is regarded as 
fairly acquainted with philosophy who knows nothing of 
Plato and Aristotle, Descartes and Spinoza, Berkeley and Hume, 
Kant and Hegel, and the rest. We should look upon him as 
having a very restricted outlook if he had read only the works 
of the thinkers of our own day; indeed, we should not expect 
him to have a proper comprehension even of these, for their 
chapters must remain blind and meaningless to one who has 
no knowledge of what preceded them and has given birth to 
the doctrines there set forth. 

T 273 



2 74 -^^ hitroduction to Philosophy 

It is a fair question to ask: Why is philosophy so bound up 
with the study of the past? Why may we not content ourselves 
with what has up to the present been attained, and omit a sur- 
vey of the road along which our predecessors have traveled? 

84. The Especial Importance of Historical Studies to Re- 
flective Thought. — In some of the preceding chapters deahng 
with the various philosophical sciences, it has been indicated 
that, in the sciences we do not regard as philosophical, men 
may work on the basis of certain commonly accepted assump- 
tions and employ methods which are generally regarded as trust- 
worthy within the given field. The value both of the funda- 
mental assumptions and of the methods of investigation appear 
to be guaranteed by the results attained. There are not merely 
observation and hypothesis; there is also verification, and 
where this is lacking, men either abandon their position or 
reserve their judgment. 

Thus, a certain body of interrelated facts is built up, the sig- 
nificance of which, in many fields at least, is apparent even to 
the layman. Nor is it wholly beyond him to judge whether 
the results of scientific investigations can be verified. An 
eclipse, calculated by methods which he is quite unable to fol- 
low, may occur at the appointed hour and confirm his respect 
for the astronomer. The efficacy of a serum in the cure of 
diseases may convince him that work done in the laboratory 
is not labor lost. 

It seems evident that the several sciences do really rise on 
stepping stones of their dead selves, and that those selves of the 
past are really dead and superseded. Who would now think 
of going back for his science to Plato's "Timaeus," or would 
accept the description of the physical world contained in the 
works of Aristotle? What chemist or physicist need busy him- 
self with the doctrine of atoms and their clashings presented in 
the magnificent poem of Lucretius? Who can forbear a smile 
— a sympathetic one — when he turns over the pages of Angus- 



The History of Philosophy 275 

tine's " City of God," and sees what sort of a world this remark- 
able man believed himself to inhabit ? 

It is the historic and human interest that carries us back to 
these things. We say: What ingenuity! what a happy guess! 
how well that was reasoned in the hght of what was actually 
known about the world in those days! But we never forget 
that what compels our admiration does so because it makes us 
realize that we stand in the presence of a great mind, and not 
because it is a foundation-stone in the great edifice which science 
has erected. 

But it is not so in philosophy. It is not possible to regard the 
philosophical reflections of Plato and of Aristotle as superseded 
in the same sense in which we may so regard their science. 
The reason for this lies in the difference between scientific 
thought and reflective thought. 

The two have been contrasted in Chapter II of this volume. 
It was there pointed out that the sort of thinking demanded 
in the special sciences is not so very different from that with 
which we are all familiar in common life. Science is more 
accurate and systematic, it has a broader outlook, and it is 
free from the imperfections which vitiate the uncritical and 
fragmentary knowledge which experience of the world yields 
the unscientific. But, after all, the world is much the same 
sort of a world to the man of science and to his uncritical neigh- 
bor. The latter can, as we have seen, understand what, in 
general, the former is doing, and can appropriate many of his 
results. 

On the other hand, it often happens that the man who has 
not, with pains and labor, learned to reflect, cannot even see 
that the philosopher has a genuine problem before him. Thus, 
the plain man accepts the fact that he has a mind and that it 
knows the world. That both mental phenomena and physical 
phenomena should be carefully observed and classified he may 
be ready to admit. But that the very conceptions of mind and 



276 A7t Introduction to Philosophy 

of what it means to know a world are vague and indefinite in 
the extreme, and stand in need of careful analysis, he does not 
realize. 

In other words, he sees that our knowledge needs to be ex- 
tended and rendered more accurate and reliable, but he does 
not see that, if we are to think clearly and consciously, all our 
knowledge needs to be gone over in a different way. In com- 
mon life it is quite possible to use in the attainment of prac- 
tical ends knowledge which has not been analyzed and of the 
full meaning of which we are ignorant. I hope it has become 
evident in the course of this volume that something closely 
analogous is true in the field of science. The man of science 
may measure space and time, and may study the phenomena 
of the human mind, without even attempting to answer all the 
questions which may be raised as to what is meant, in the last 
analysis, by such concepts as space, time, and the mind. 

That such concepts should be analyzed has, I hope, been 
made clear, if only that erroneous and misleading notions as 
to these things should be avoided. But when a man with a 
genius for metaphysical analysis addresses himself to this task, 
he cannot simply hand the results attained by his reflections 
over to his less reflective fellow- man. His words are not under- 
stood; he seems to be dealing with shadows, with unrealities; 
he has passed from the real world of common thought into an- 
other world which appears to have little relation to the former. 

Nor can verification, indubitable proof, be demanded and 
furnished as it can in many parts of the field cultivated by the 
special sciences. We may judge science fairly well without 
ourselves being scientists, but it is not possible to judge phi- 
losophy without being to some extent a philosopher. 

In other words, the conclusions of reflective thought must 
be judged by following the process and discovering its cogency 
or the reverse. Thus, when the philosopher lays before us 
an argument to prove that we must regard the only ultimate 



The History of Philosophy 277 

reality in the world as unknowable, and must abandon our 
theistic convictions, how shall we make a decision as to whether 
he is right or is wrong? May we expect that the day will come 
when he will be justified or condemned as is the astronomer 
on the day predicted for an echpse ? Neither the philosophy of 
Locke, nor that of Descartes, nor that of Kant, can be vindicated 
as can a prediction touching an eclipse of the sun. To judge 
these men, we must learn to think with them, to survey the road 
by which they travel; and this we cannot do until we have 
learned the art. 

Whether we like to admit it or not, we must admit, if we are 
fair-minded and intelligent, that philosophy cannot speak with 
the same authority as science, where science has been able to 
verify its results. There are, of course, scientific hypotheses and 
speculations which should be regarded as being quite as uncer- 
tain as anything brought forward by the philosophers. But, 
admitting this, the fact remains that there is a difference be- 
tween the two fields as a whole, and that the philosopher should 
learn not to speak with an assumption of authority. No final 
philosophy has been attained, so palpably firm in its founda- 
tion, and so admittedly trustworthy in its construction, that we 
are justified in saying: Now we need never go back to the past 
unless to gratify the historic interest. It is a weakness of young 
men, and of older men of partisan temper, to feel very sure 
of matters which, in the nature of things, must remain uncertain. 

Since these things are so, and since men possess the power 
of reflection in very varying degree, it is not surprising that 
we find it worth while to turn back and study the thoughts of 
those who have had a genius for reflection, even though they 
Hved at a time when modern science was awaiting its birth. 
Some things cannot be known until other things are known; 
often there must be a vast collection of individual facts before 
the generaUzations of science can come into being. But many 
of the problems with which reflective thought is still struggling 



2/8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

have not been furthered in the least by information which has 
been collected during the centuries which have elapsed since 
they were attacked by the early Greek philosophers. 

Thus, we are still discussing the distinction between " ap- 
pearance " and "reality," and many and varied are the opinions 
at which philosophers arrive. But Thales, who heads the list 
of the Greek philosophers, had quite enough material, given in 
his own experience, to enable him to solve this problem as well 
as any modern philosopher, had he been able to use the mate- 
rial. He who is familiar with the history of philosophy will 
recognize that, although one may smile at Augustine's accounts 
of the races of men, and of the spontaneous generation of small 
animals, no one has a right to despise his profound reflections 
upon the nature of time and the problems which arise out of 
its character as past, present, and future. 

The fact is that metaphysics does not lag behind because of 
our lack of material to work with. The difflculties we have to 
face are nothing else than the difficulties of reflective thought. 
Why can we not tell clearly what we mean when we use the 
word " self," or speak of " knowledge," or insist that we know 
an " external world "? Are we not concerned with the most 
familiar of experiences? To be sure we are — with experiences 
familiarly, but vaguely and unanalytically, known and, hence, 
only half known. All these experiences the great men of the 
past had as well as we ; and if they had greater powers of reflec- 
tion, perhaps they saw more deeply into them than we do. At 
any rate, we cannot afford to assume that they did not. 

One thing, however, I must not omit to mention. Although 
one man cannot turn over bodily the results of his reflection to 
another, it by no means follows that he cannot give the other 
a helping hand, or warn him of dangers by himself stumbling 
into pitfalls, as the case may be. We have an indefinite advan- 
tage over the soHtary thinkers who opened up the paths of re- 
flection, for we have the benefit of their teaching. And this 



The History of Philosophy 279 

brings me to a consideration which I must discuss in the next 
section. 

85. The Value of Different Points of View. — The man who 
has not read is Hke the man who has not traveled — he is not 
an intelligent critic, for he has nothing with which to compare 
what falls within the httle circle of his experiences. That the 
prevailing architecture of a town is ugly can scarcely impress 
one who is acquainted with no other town. If we live in a 
community in which men's manners are not good, and their 
standard of living not the highest, our attention does not dwell 
much upon the fact, unless some contrasted experience wakes 
within us a clear consciousness of the difference. That to 
which we are accustomed we accept uncritically and unrefiect- 
ively. It is difficult for us to see it somewhat as one might see 
it to whom it came as a new experience. 

Of course, there may be in the one town buildings of more 
and of less architectural beauty; and there may be in the one 
community differences of opinion that furnish intellectual 
stimulus and keep awake the critical spirit. Still, there is such 
a thing as a prevalent type of architecture, and there is such a 
thing as the spirit of the times. He who is carried along by 
the spirit of the age may easily conclude that what is, is right, 
because he hears few raise their voices in protest. 

To estimate justly the type of thought in which he has been 
brought up, he must have something with which to compare it. 
He must stand at a distance, and try to judge it as he would 
judge a type of doctrine presented to him for the first time. 
And in the accompHshment of this task he can find no greater 
aid than the study of the history of philosophy. 

It is at first something of a shock to a man to discover that 
assumptions which he has been accustomed to make without 
question have been frankly repudiated by men quite as clever 
as he, and, perhaps, more critical. It opens the eyes to see that 
his standards of worth have been weighed by others and have 



28o An Introduction to Philosophy 

been found wanting. It may well incline him to reexamine 
reasonings in which he has detected no flaw, when he finds that 
acute minds have tried them before, and have declared them 
faulty. 

Nor can it be without its influence upon his judgment of the 
significance of a doctrine, when it becomes plain to him that 
this significance can scarcely be fully comprehended until the 
history of the doctrine is known. For example, he thinks of 
the mind as somehow in the body, as interacting with it, as a 
substance, and as immaterial. In the course of his reading it 
begins to dawn upon his consciousness that he has not thought 
all this out for himself; he has taken these notions from others, 
who in turn have had them from their predecessors. He begins 
to realize that he is not resting upon evidence independently 
found in his own experience, but has upon his hands a sheaf 
of opinions which are the echoes of old philosophies, and whose 
rise and development can be traced over the stretch of the 
centuries. Can he help asking himself, when he sees this, 
whether the opinions in question express the truth and the 
whole truth ? Is he not forced to take the critical attitude 
toward them ? 

And when he views the succession of systems which pass in 
review before him, noting how a truth may be dimly seen by 
one writer, denied by another, taken up again and made clearer 
by a third, and so on, how can he avoid the reflection that, 
as there was some error mixed with the truth presented in earlier 
systems, so there probably is some error in whatever may happen 
to be the form of doctrine generally received in his own time? 
The evolution of humanity is not yet at an end; men still strug- 
gle to see clearly, and fall short of the ideal; it must be a good 
thing to be freed from the dogmatic assumption of finality 
natural to the man of limited outlook. In studying the history 
of philosophy sympathetically we are not merely caUing to our 
aid critics who possess the advantage of seeing things from a 



The History of Philosophy 281 

different point of view, but we are reminding ourselves that 
we, too, are human and fallible. 

86. Philosophy as Poetry, and Philosophy as Science. — The 

recognition of the truth that the problems of reflection do not 
admit of easy solution and that verification can scarcely be 
expected as it can in the fields of the special sciences, need not, 
even when it is brought home to us, as it is apt to be, by the study 
of the history of philosophy, lead us to beUeve that philosophies 
are like the fashions, a something gotten up to suit the taste of 
the day, and to be dismissed without regret as soon as that taste 
changes. 

Philosophy is sometimes compared with poetry. It is argued 
that each age must have its own poetry, even though it be in- 
ferior to that which it has inherited from the past. Just so, it 
is said, each age must have its own philosophy, and the philos- 
ophy of an earlier age will not satisfy its demands. The im- 
plication is that in dealing with philosophy we are not concerned 
with what is true or untrue in itself considered, but with what 
is satisfying to us or the reverse. 

Now, it would sound absurd to say that each age must have 
its own geometry or its own physics. The fact that it has long 
been known that the sum of the interior angles of a plane 
triangle is equal to two right angles, does not warrant me in 
repudiating that truth; nor am I justified in doing so, and 
in believing the opposite, merely because I find the statement 
uninteresting or distasteful. When we are deahng with such 
matters as these, we recognize that truth is truth, and that, if 
we mistake it or refuse to recognize it, so much the worse for us. 

Is it otherwise in philosophy? Is it a perfectly proper thing 
that, in one age, men should be idealists, and in another, mate- 
rialists; in one, theists, and in another, agnostics? Is the dis- 
tinction between true and false nothing else than the distinction 
between what is in harmony with the spirit of the times and 
what is not ? 



282 A71 Introduction to Philosophy 

That it is natural that there should be such fluctuations of 
opinion, we may freely admit. Many things influence a man 
to embrace a given type of doctrine, and, as we have seen, 
verification is a difficult problem. But have we here, any more 
than in other fields, the right to assume that a doctrine was 
true at a given time merely because it seemed to men true at 
that time, or because they found it pleasing? The history of 
science reveals that many things have long been believed to 
be true, and, indeed, to be bound up with what were regarded 
as the highest interests of man, and that these same things have 
later been discovered to be false — not false merely for a later 
age, but false for all time; as false when they were believed in 
as when they were exploded and known to be exploded. No 
man of sense believes that the Ptolemaic system was true for 
a while, and that then the Copernican became true. We say 
that the former only seemed true, and that the enthusiasm of 
its adherents was a mistaken enthusiasm. 

It is well to remember that philosophies are brought forward 
because it is believed or hoped that they are true. A fairy tale 
may be recited and may be approved, although no one dreams 
of attaching faith to the events narrated in it. But a philosophy 
attempts to give us some account of the nature of the world in 
which we live. If the philosopher frankly abandons the at- 
tempt to tell us what is true, and with a Celtic generosity ad- 
dresses himself to the task of saying what will be agreeable to 
us, he loses his right to the title. It is not enough that he stirs 
our emotions, and works up his unrealities into something re- 
sembling a poem. It is not primarily his task to please, as it is 
not the task of the serious worker in science to please those 
whom he is called upon to instruct. Truth is truth, whether 
it be scientific truth or philosophical truth. And error, no 
matter how agreeable or how nicely adjusted to the temper 
of the times, is always error. If it is error in a field in which 
the detection and exposure of error is difficult, it is the 



The History of Philosophy 283 

more dangerous, and the more should we be on our guard 
against it. 

We may, then, accept the lesson of the history of philosophy, 
to wit, that we have no right to regard any given doctrine as 
final in such a sense that it need no longer be held tentatively 
and as subject to possible revision; but we need not, on that 
account, deny that philosophy is, what it has in the past been 
beHeved to be, an earnest search for truth. A philosophy that 
did not even profess to be this would not be listened to at all. 
It would be regarded as too trivial to merit serious attention. 
If we take the word " science " in the broad sense to indicate 
a knowledge of the truth more exact and satisfactory than that 
which obtains in common Hfe, we may say that every philosophy 
worthy of the name is, at least, an attempt at scientific knowl- 
edge. Of course, this sense of the word " science " should not 
be confused with that in which it has been used elsewhere in 
this volume. 

87. How to read the History of Philosophy. — He who takes 
up the history of philosophy for the first time is apt to be im- 
pressed with the fact that he is reading something that might 
not inaptly be called the history of human error. 

It begins with crude and, to the superficial spectator, seem- 
ingly childish attempts in the field of physical science. There 
are clever guesses at the nature of the physical world, but the 
boldest of speculations are entered upon with no apparent recog- 
nition of the difiiculty of the task undertaken, and with no reali- 
zation of the need for caution. Somewhat later a different 
class of problems makes its appearance — the problems which 
have to do with the mind and with the nature of knowledge, 
reflective problems which scarcely seem to have come fairly 
within the horizon of the earliest thinkers. 

These problems even the beginner may be willing to recognize 
as philosophical; but he may conscientiously harbor a doubt 
as to the desirabihty of spending time upon the solutions which 



284 An Introduction to Philosophy 

are offered. System rises after system, and confronts him with 
what appear to be new questions and new answers. It seems 
as though each philosopher were constructing a world for him- 
self independently, and commanding him to accept it, without 
first convincing him of his right to assume this tone of authority 
and to set up for an oracle. In all this conflict of opinions 
where shall we seek for truth? Why should we accept one man 
as a teacher rather than another? Is not the lesson to be gath- 
ered from the whole procession of systems best summed up in 
the dictum of Protagoras: " Man is the measure of all things " 
— each has his own truth, and this need not be truth to another? 

This, I say, is a first impression and a natural one. I hasten 
to add : this should not be the last impression of those who read 
with thoughtful attention. 

One thing should be emphasized at the outset: nothing will 
so often bear rereading as the history of philosophy. When 
we go over the ground after we have obtained a first acquaint- 
ance with the teachings of the different philosophers, we begin 
to realize that what we have in our hands is, in a sense, a con- 
nected whole. We see that if Plato and Aristotle had not hved, 
we could not have had the philosophy which passed current in 
the Middle Ages and furnished a foundation for the teachings 
of the Church. We realize that without this latter we could not 
have had Descartes, and without Descartes we could not have 
had Locke and Berkeley and Hume. And had not these lived, 
we should not have had Kant and his successors. Other philoso- 
phies we should undoubtedly have had, for the busy mind of 
man must produce something. But whatever glimpses at the 
truth these men have vouchsafed us have been guaranteed 
by the order of development in which they have stood. They 
could not independently have written the books that have come 
down to us. 

This should be evident from what has been said earlier in 
this chapter and elsewhere in this book. Let us bear in mind 



The History of Philosophy 285 

that a philosopher draws his material from two sources. First 
of all, he has the experience of the mind and the world which is 
the common property of us all. But it is, as we have seen, by 
no means easy to use this material. It is vastly difficult to reflect. 
It is fatally easy to misconceive what presents itself in our 
experience. With the most earnest effort to describe what 
hes before us, we give a false description, and we mislead our- 
selves and others. 

In the second place, the philosopher has the interpretations 
of experience which he has inherited from his predecessors. 
The influence of these is enormous. Each age has, to a large 
extent, its problems already formulated or half formulated for 
it. Every man must have ancestors, of some sort, if he is to 
appear upon this earthly stage at all; and a wholly independent 
philosopher is as impossible a creature as an ancestorless man. 
We have seen how Descartes (§ 60) tried to repudiate his debt 
to the past, and how little successful he was in doing so. 

Now, we make a mistake if we overlook the genius of the 
individual thinker. The history of speculative thought has 
many times taken a turn which can only be accounted for by 
taking into consideration the genius for reflective thought pos- 
sessed by some great mind. In the crucible of such an intellect,, 
old truths take on a new aspect, familiar facts acquire a new and 
a richer meaning. But we also make a mistake if we fail to 
see in the writings of such a man one of the stages which has been 
reached in the gradual evolution of human thought, if we fail 
to reahze that each philosophy is to a great extent the product 
of the past. 

When one comes to understand these things, the history of 
philosophy no longer presents itself as a mere agglomeration of 
arbitrary and independent systems. And an attentive reading 
gives us a further key to the interpretation of what seemed 
inexpHcable. We find that there may be distinct and different 
streams of thought, which, for a while, run parallel without 



286 An Introduction to Philosophy 

commingling their waters. For centuries the Epicurean fol- 
lowed his own tradition, and walked in the footsteps of his 
own master. The Stoic was of sterner stuff, and he chose to 
travel another path. To this day there are adherents of the 
old church philosophy, Neo-Scholastics, whose ways of thinking 
can only be understood when we have some knowledge of 
Aristotle and of his influence upon men during the Middle Ages. 
We ourselves may be Kantians or Hegelians, and the man at 
our elbow may recognize as his spiritual father Comte or Spencer. 

It does not follow that, because one system follows another 
in chronological order, it is its lineal descendant. But some 
ancestor a system always has, and if we have the requisite learn- 
ing and ingenuity, we need not find it impossible to explain why 
this thinker or that was influenced to give his thought the pecul- 
iar turn that characterizes it. Sometimes many influences have 
conspired to attain the result, and it is no small pleasure to 
address oneself to the task of disentangling the threads which 
enter into the fabric. 

Moreover, as we read thus with discrimination, we begin to 
see that the great men of the past have not spoken without ap- 
pearing to have sufficient reason for their utterances in the light 
of the times in which they lived. We may make it a rule that, 
when they seem to be speaking arbitrarily, to be laying before 
us reasonings that are not reasonings, dogmas for which no 
excuse seems to be offered, the fault lies in our lack of compre- 
hension. Until we can understand how a man, living in a 
certain century, and breathing a certain moral and intellectual 
atmosphere, could have said what he did, we should assume 
that we have read his words, but not his real thought. For 
the latter there is always a psychological, if not a logical, jus- 
tification. 

And this brings me to the question of the language in which 
the philosophers have expressed their thoughts. The more 
attentively one reads the history of philosophy, the clearer it 



The History of Philosophy 287 

becomes that the number of problems with which the philoso- 
phers have occupied themselves is not overwhelmingly great. 
If each philosophy which confronts us seems to us quite new 
and strange, it is because we have not arrived at the stage at 
which it is possible for us to recognize old friends with new faces. 
The same old problems, the problems which must ever present 
themselves to reflective thought, recur again and again. The 
form is more or less changed, and the answers which are given 
to them are not, of course, always the same. Each age expresses 
itself in a somewhat different way. But sometimes the solution 
proposed for a given problem is almost the same in substance, 
even when the two thinkers we are contrasting belong to cen- 
turies which lie far apart. In this case, only our own inability 
to strip off the husk and reach the fruit itself prevents us from 
seeing that we have before us nothing really new. 

Thus, if we read the history of philosophy with patience and 
with discrimination, it grows luminous. We come to feel nearer 
to the men of the past. We see that we may learn from their 
successes and from their failures; and if we are capable of 
drawing a moral at all, we apply the lesson to ourselves. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
SOME PRACTICAL ADMONITIONS 

88. Be prepared to enter upon a New Way of looking at 
Things. — We have seen that reflective thought tries to analyze 
experience and to attain to a clear \aew of the elements that 
make it up — to realize vividly what is the very texture of the 
known world, and what is the nature of knowledge. It is 
possible to live to old age, as many do, without even a sus- 
picion that there may be such a knowledge as this, and never- 
theless to possess a large measure of rather vague but very 
ser\dceable information about both minds and bodies. 

It is something of a shock to learn that a multitude of ques- 
tions may be asked touching the most famihar things in our 
experience, and that our comprehension of those things may 
be so vague that we grope in vain for an answer. Space, time, 
matter, minds, realities, — with these things we have to do 
every day. Can it be that we do not know what they are? 
Then we must be blind, indeed. How shall we set about en- 
lightening our ignorance? 

Not as we have enlightened our ignorance heretofore. We 
have added fact to fact ; but our task now is to gain a new Hght 
on all facts, to see them from a difl'erent point of view; not so 
much to extend our knowledge as to deepen it. 

It seems scarcely necessary to point out that our world, 
when looked at for the first time in this new way, may seem 
to be a new and strange world. The real things of our experi- 
ence may appear to melt away, to be dissolved by reflection 
into mere shadows and unreaHties. Well do I remember 

288 



Some Practical Admonitions 289 

the consternation with which, when almost a schoolboy, I 
first made my acquaintance with John Stuart Mill's doctrine 
that the things about us are "permanent possibiHties of sen- 
sation." To Mill, of course, chairs and tables were still chairs 
and tables, but to me they became ghosts, inhabitants of a 
phantom world, to find oneself in which was a matter of the 
gravest concern. 

I suspect that this sense of the unreality of things comes 
often to those who have entered upon the path of reflection. 
It may be a comfort to such to realize that it is rather a thing to 
be expected. How can one feel at home in a world which 
one has entered for the first time? One cannot become a phi- 
losopher and remain exactly the man that one was before. 
Men have tried to do it, — Thomas Reid is a notable instance 
(§ 50); but the result is that one simply does not become a 
philosopher. It is not possible to gain a new and a deeper 
insight into the nature of things, and yet to see things just as 
one saw them before one attained to this. 

If, then, we are willing to study philosophy at all, we must 
be willing to embrace new views of the world, if there seem 
to be good reasons for so doing. And if at first we suffer from 
a sense of bewilderment, we must have patience, and must 
wait to see whether time and practice may not do something 
toward removing our distress. It may be that we have only 
half understood what has been revealed to us. 

89. Be willing to consider Possibilities which at first strike 
one as Absurd. — It must be confessed that the philosophers 
have sometimes brought forward doctrines which seem repel- 
lent to good sense, and little in harmony with the experience 
of the world which we have all our lives enjoyed. Shall we 
on this account turn our backs upon them and refuse them an 
impartial hearing? 

Thus, the idealist maintains that there is no existence save 
psychical existence; that the material things about us are really 



290 An Introduction to Philosophy 

mental things. One of the forms taken by this doctrine is that 
alluded to above, that things are permanent possibilities of 
sensation. 

I think it can hardly be denied that this sounds out of har- 
mony with the common opinion of mankind. Men do not 
hesitate to distinguish between minds and material things, 
nor do they believe that material things exist only in minds. 
That dreams and hallucinations exist only in minds they are 
very willing to admit; but they will not admit that this is true 
of such things as real chairs and tables. And if we ask them 
why they take such a position, they fall back upon what 
seems given in experience. 

Now, as the reader of the earlier chapters has seen, I think 
that the plain man is more nearly right in his opinion touching 
the existence of a world of non-mental things than is the ideal- 
istic philosopher. The latter has seen a truth and miscon- 
ceived it, thus losing some truth that he had before he began 
to reflect. The former has not seen the truth which has 
impressed the idealist, and he has held on to that vague 
recognition that there are two orders of things given in our 
experience, the physical and the mental, which seems to us so im- 
mistakable a fact until we fall into the hands of the philosophers. 

But all this does not prove that we have a right simply to 
fall back upon "common sense," and refuse to listen to the 
idealist. The deliverances of unreflective common sense are 
vague in the extreme ; and though it may seem to assure us that 
there is a world of things non-mental, its account of that world 
is confused and incoherent. He who must depend on common 
sense alone can find no answer to the idealists; he refuses to 
follow them, but he cannot refute them. He is reduced to dog- 
matic denial. 

This is in itself an uncomfortable position. And when we 
add to this the reflection that such a man loses the truth which 
the ideahst emphasizes, the truth that the external world of 



Some Practical Admonitions 291 

which we speak must be, if we are to know it at all, a world 
revealed to our senses, a world given in our experience, we see 
that he who stops his ears remains in ignorance. The fact is 
that the man who has never weighed the evidence that impresses 
the ideahst is not able to see clearly what is meant by that 
external world in which we all incline to put such faith. We 
may say that he ]eels a truth bhndly, but does not see it. 

Let us take another illustration. If there is one thing that 
we feel to be as sure as the existence of the external world, 
it is that there are other minds more or less resembhng our 
own. The solipsist may try to persuade us that the evidence 
for such minds is untrustworthy. We may see no flaw in his 
argument, but he cannot convince us. May we ignore him, 
and refuse to consider the matter at all? 

Surely not, if we wish to substitute clear thinking for vague 
and indefinite opinion. We should hsten with attention, 
strive to understand all the reasonings laid before us, and then, 
if they seem to lead to conclusions really not in harmony with 
our experience, go carefully over the ground and try to dis- 
cover the flaw in them. It is only by doing something like 
this that we can come to see clearly what is meant when we 
speak of two or more minds and the relation between them. 
The solipsist can help us, and we should let him do it. 

We should, therefore, be wilhng to consider seriously all 
sorts of doctrines which may at first strike us as unreasonable. 
I have chosen two which I beheve to contain error. But the 
man who approaches a doctrine which impresses him as strange 
has no right to assume at the outset that it contains error. We 
have seen again and again how easy it is to misapprehend what 
is given in experience. The philosopher may be in the right, 
and what he says may repel us because we have become accus- 
tomed to certain erroneous notions, and they have come to 
seem self-evident truths. 

90. Do not have too much Respect for Authority. — But if 



292 An Introduction to Philosophy 

it is an error to refuse to listen to the philosopher, it is surely 
no less an error to accord him an authority above what he has 
a right to demand. Bear in mind what was said in the last 
chapter about the difference between the special sciences and 
philosophy. There is in the latter field no body of doctrine 
that we may justly regard as authoritative. There are '' schools " 
of philosophy, and their adherents fall into the very human 
error of feeling very sure that they and those who agree with 
them are right; and the emphasis with which they speak is 
apt to mislead those who are not well informed. I shall say 
a few words about the dangers of the "school." 

If we look about us, we are impressed by the fact that there 
are "schools" of philosophy, somewhat as there are religious 
sects and political parties. An impressive teacher sets the 
mark of his personality and of his preferences upon those who 
come under his influence. They are not at an age to be very 
critical, and, indeed, they have not as yet the requisite learn- 
ing to enable them to be critical. They keep the trend which 
has been given them early in life, and, when they become 
teachers, they pass on the type of thought with which they 
have been inoculated, and the circle widens. "Schools" may 
arise, of course, in a different way. An epoch-making book 
may sweep men off of their feet and make' of them passionate 
adherents. But he who has watched the development of the 
American universities during the last twenty-five years must 
be impressed with the enormous influence which certain teachers 
have had in giving a direction to the philosophic thought of 
those who have come in contact with them. We expect the 
pupils of a given master to have a given shade of opinion, and 
very often we are not disappointed in our guess. 

It is entirely natural that this should be so. Those who 
betake themselves to the study of philosophy are men like 
other men. They have the same feelings, and the bending 
of the twig has the same significance in their case that it has 



Some Practical Admonitions 293 

in that of others. It is no small compliment to a teacher that 
he can thus spread his influence, and leave his proxies even 
when he passes away. 

But, when we strive to "put off humanity" and to look at 
the whole matter under the cold hght of reason, we may well 
ask ourselves, whether he who unconsciously accepts his phi- 
losophy, in whole or in part, because it has been the philosophy 
of his teacher, is not doing what is done by those persons whose 
pontics and whose rehgion take their color from such acci- 
dental circumstances as birth in a given class or family tradi- 
tions ? 

I am far from saying that it is, in general, a bad thing for 
the world that men should be influenced in this way by one 
another. I say only that, when we look at the facts of the 
case, we must admit that even our teachers of philosophy do 
not always become representatives of the peculiar type of 
thought for which they stand, merely through a deh berate 
choice from the wealth of material which the history of specu- 
lative thought lays before them. They are influenced by others 
to take what they do take, and the traces of this influence are 
apt to remain with them through life. He who wishes to be 
entirely impartial must be on his guard against such influences 
as these, and must distrust prejudices for or against certain 
doctrines, when he finds that he imbibed them at an uncritical 
age and has remained under their influence ever since. Some 
do appear to be able to emancipate themselves, and to outgrow 
what they first learned. 

It is, as I have said, natural that there should be a tendency 
to form "schools" in philosophy. And there are certain things 
that make this somewhat uncritical acceptance of a doctrine 
very attractive. 

In the first place, if we are willing to take a system of any 
sort as a whole, it saves us a vast amount of trouble. We 
seem to have a citadel, a point of vantage from which we can 



294 -^^^ Introduction to Philosophy 

look out upon life and interpret it. If the house we live in is 
not in all respects ideal, at least it is a house, and we are not 
homeless. There is nothing more intolerable to most men 
than the having of no opinions. They will change one opinion 
for another, but they will rarely consent to do without altogether. 
It is something to have an answer to offer to those who per- 
sist in asking questions; and it is something to have some sort 
of ground under one's feet, even if it be not very solid ground. 

Again. Man is a social creature, and he is greatly fortified 
in his opinions by the consciousness that others share them 
with him. If we become adherents of a "school," we have 
the agreeable consciousness that we are not walking alone 
through the maze of speculations that confronts those who 
reflect. There appears to be a traveled way in which we may 
have some confidence. Are we not following the crowd, or, 
at least, a goodly number of the pilgrims who are seeking the 
same goal with ourselves? Under such circumstances we are 
not so often impelled to inquire anxiously whether we are 
after all upon the right road. We assume that we have made 
no mistake. 

Under such circumstances we are apt to forget that there are 
many such roads, and that these have been traveled in ages 
past by troops very much like our own, who also cherished the 
hope that they were upon the one and only highway. In other 
words, we are apt to forget the lesson of the history of phi- 
losophy. This is a serious mistake. 

And what intensifies our danger, if we belong to a school 
which happens to be dominant and to have active representa- 
tives, is that we get very little real criticism. The books that 
we write are usually criticised by those who view our positions 
sympathetically, and who are more inclined to praise than to 
blame. He who looks back upon the past is struck with the 
fact that books which have been lauded to the skies in one 
age have often been subjected to searching criticism and to a 



Some Practical Admonitions 295 

good deal of condemnation in the next. Something very like 
this is to be expected of books written in our own time. It 
is, however, a pity that we should have to wait so long for 
impartial criticism. 

This leads me to say a word of the reviews which fill our 
philosophical journals, and which we must read, for it is impos- 
sible to read all the books that come out, and yet we wish to 
know something about them. 

To the novice it is something of a surprise to find that books 
by men whom he knows to be eminent for their ingenuity and 
their learning are condemned in very offhand fashion by 
quite young men, who as yet have attained to httle learning 
and to no eminence at all. One sometimes is tempted to won- 
der that men admittedly remarkable should have fathered 
such poor productions as we are given to understand them to 
be, and should have offered them to a public that has a right 
to be indignant. 

Now, there can be no doubt that, in philosophy, a cat has 
the right to look at a king, and has also a right to point out 
his misdoings, if such there be. But it seems just to indicate 
that, in this matter, certain cautions should be observed. 

If a great man has been guilty of an error in reasoning, 
there is no reason why it should not be pointed out by any one 
who is capable of detecting it. The authority of the critic is 
a matter of no moment where the evidence is given. In such 
a case, we take a suggestion and we do the criticising for our- 
selves. But where the evidence is not given, where the jus- 
tice of the criticism is not proved, the case is different. Here 
we must take into consideration the authority of the critic, 
and, if we follow him at all, we must follow him blindly. Is it 
safe to do this? 

It is never safe in philosophy, or, at any rate, it is safe so 
seldom that the exceptions are not worth taking into account. 
Men write from the standpoint of some school of opinion; 



296 An Introduction to Philosophy 

and, until we know their prepossessions, their statements 
that this is good, that is bad, the third thing is profound, are 
of no significance whatever. We should simply set them 
aside, and try to find out from our reviewer what is contained 
in the book under criticism. 

One of the evils arising out of the bias I am discussing is, 
that books and authors are praised or condemned indiscrimi- 
nately because of their point of view, and little discrimination 
is made between good books and poor books. There is all 
the difference in the world between a work which can be con- 
demned only on the ground that it is realistic or idealistic in 
its standpoint, and those feeble productions which are to be 
condemned from every point of view. If we consistently 
carry out the principle that we may condemn all those who are 
not of our party, we must give short shrift to a majority of 
the great men of the past. 

So I say, beware of authority in philosophy, and, above all, 
beware of that most insidious form of authority, the spirit of 
the "school." It cannot but narrow our sympathies and 
restrict our outlook. 

91. Remember that Ordinary Rules of Evidence Apply. — 
What I am going to say in this section is closely related to what 
has been said just above. To the disinterested observer it 
may seem rather amusing that one should think it worth while 
to try to show that we have not the right to use a special set 
of weights and measures when we are dealing with things philo- 
sophical. There was a time when men held that a given doc- 
trine could be philosophically false, and, at the same time, 
theologically true; but surely the day of such twists and turn- 
ings is past ! 

I am by no means sure that it is past. With the lapse of 
time, old doctrines take on new aspects, and come to be couched 
in a language that suits the temper of the later age. Some- 
times the doctrine is veiled and rendered less startling, but 



Some Practical Admonitions 297 

remains essentially what it was before, and may be criticised 
in much the same way. 

I suppose we may say that every one who is animated by 
the party spirit discussed above, and who holds to a group of 
philosophical tenets with a warmth of conviction out of pro- 
portion to the authority of the actual evidence which may be 
claimed for them, is tacitly assuming that the truth or falsity 
of philosophical dogmas is not wholly a matter of evidence, 
but that the desires of the philosopher may also be taken into 
account. 

This position is often taken unconsciously. Thus, when, 
instead of proving to others that a given doctrine is false, we 
try to show them that it is a dangerous doctrine, and leads to 
unpalatable consequences, we assume that what seems dis- 
tasteful cannot be true, and we count on the fact that men in- 
cline to beUeve what they like to beheve. 

May we give this position the dignity of a philosophical 
doctrine and hold that, in the somewhat nebulous realm inhabited 
by the philosopher, men are not bound by the same rules of 
evidence that obtain elsewhere? That this is actually done, 
those who read much in the field of modern philosophy are 
well aware. Several excellent writers have maintained that 
we need not, even if there seems to be evidence for them, ac- 
cept views of the universe which do not satisfy "our whole 
nature." 

We should not confuse with this position the very different 
one which maintains that we have a right to hold tentatively, 
and with a willingness to abandon them should evidence against 
them be forthcoming, views which we are not able completely 
to estabhsh, but which seem reasonable. One may do this 
with perfect sincerity, and without holding that philosophical 
truth is in any way different from scientific truth. But the 
other position goes beyond this; it assumes that man must 
be satisfied, and that only that can be true which satisfies him. 



298 An Introduction to Philosophy 

I ask, is it not significant that such an assumption should 
be made only in the realm of the un verifiable? No man dreams 
of maintaining that the rise and fall of stocks will be such as 
to satisfy the whole nature even of the elect, or that the future 
history of man on this planet is a thing to be determined by 
some philosopher who decides for us what would or would not 
be desirable. 

Surely all truths of election — those truths that we simply 
choose to have true — are something much less august than 
that Truth of Evidence which sometimes seems little to fall in 
with our desires, and in the face of which we are humble lis- 
teners, not dictators. Before the latter we are modest; we 
obey, lest we be confounded. And if, in the philosophic realm, 
we believe that we may order Truth about, and make her our 
slave, is it not because we have a secret consciousness that we 
are not dealing with Truth at all, but with Opinion, and with 
Opinion that has grown insolent because she cannot be drawn 
from her obscurity and be shown to be what she is? 

Sometimes it is suddenly revealed to a man that he has been 
accepting two orders of truth. I once walked and talked with 
a good scholar who discoursed of high themes and defended 
warmly certain theses. I said to him : If you could go into the 
house opposite, and discover unmistakably whether you are 
in the right or in the wrong, — discover it as unmistakably 
as you can discover whether there is or is not furniture in the 
drawing-room, — would you go? He thought over the matter 
for a while, and then answered frankly: No! I should not go; 
I should stay out here and argue it out. 

92. Aim at Clearness and Simplicity. — There is no depart- 
ment of investigation in which it is not desirable to cultivate 
clearness and simplicity in thinking, speaking, and writing. 
But there are certain reasons why we should be especially on 
our guard in philosophy against the danger of employing a 
tongue ''not understanded of the people." There are danger- 



Some Practical Admonitions 299 

ous pitfalls concealed under the use of technical words and 
phrases. 

The value of technical expressions in the special sciences 
must be conceded. They are supposed to be more exact and 
less ambiguous than terms in ordinary use, and they mark 
an advance in our knowledge of the subject. The distinctions 
which they indicate have been carefully drawn, and appear 
to be of such authority that they should be generally accepted. 
Sometimes, as, for example, in mathematics, a conventional 
set of symbols may quite usurp the function of ordinary lan- 
guage, and may enormously curtail the labor of setting forth 
the processes and results of investigation. 

But we must never forget that we have not in philosophy 
an authoritative body of truth which we have the right to im- 
pose upon all who enter that field. A multitude of distinctions 
have been made and are made; but the representatives of 
different schools of thought are not at one touching the value 
and significance of these distinctions. If we coin a word or 
a phrase to mark such, there is some danger that we fall into 
the habit of using such words or phrases, as we use the coins 
in our purse, without closely examining them, and with the 
ready assumption that they must pass current everywhere. 

Thus, there is always a possibility that our technical expres- 
sions may be nothing less than crystalhzed error. Against 
this we should surely be on our guard. 

Again. When we translate the language of common hfe 
into the dialect of the learned, there is danger that we may 
fall into the error of supposing that we are adding to our knowl- 
edge, even though we are doing nothing save to exchange one 
set of words for another. Thus, we all know very well that one 
mind can communicate with another. One does not have to 
be a scholar to be aware of this. If we choose to call this 
"intersubjective intercourse," we have given the thing a sound- 
ing name; but we know no more about it than we did before. 



300 An Introduction to Philosophy 

The problem of the relation between minds, and the way in 
which they are to be conceived as influencing each other, 
remains just what it was. So, also, we recognize the every- 
day fact that we know both ourselves and what is not ourselves. 
Shall we call this knowledge of something not ourselves "self- 
transcendence"? We may do so if we wish, but we ought to 
realize that this bestowal of a title makes no whit clearer what 
is meant by knowledge. 

Unhappily, men too often believe that, when they have 
come into the possession of a new word or phrase, they have 
gained a new thought. The danger is great in proportion to 
the breadth of the gulf which separates the new dialect from the 
old language of common life in which we are accustomed to 
estimate things. Many a philosopher would be bereft, indeed, 
were he robbed of his vocabulary and compelled to express his 
thoughts in ordinary speech. The theories which are im- 
plicit in certain recurring expressions would be forced to come 
out into the open, and stand criticism without disguise. 

But can one write philosophical books without using words 
which are not in common use among the unphilosophic ? 
I doubt it. Some such words it seems impossible to avoid. 
However, it does seem possible to bear in mind the dangers of 
a special philosophical terminology and to reduce such words 
to a minimum. 

Finally, we may appeal to the humanity of the philosopher. 
The path to reflection is a sufficiently difficult one as it is; 
why should he roll rocks upon it and compel those who come 
after him to climb over them? If truths are no truer for being 
expressed in a repellent form, why should he trick them out in 
a fantastic garb? What we want is the naked truth, and we 
lose time and patience in freeing our mummy from the wrap- 
pings in which learned men have seen fit to encase it. 

93. Do not hastily accept a Doctrine. — This brings me to 
the last of the maxims which I urge upon the attention of the 



Some Practical Admonitions 301 

reader. All that has been said so far may be regarded as 
leading up to it. 

The difficulty that confronts us is this: On the one hand, 
we must recognize the uncertainty that reigns in this field of 
investigation. We must ever weigh probabihties and pos- 
sibilities; we do not find ourselves in the presence of indubi- 
table truths which all competent persons stand ready to admit. 
This seems to argue that we should learn to suspend judgment, 
and should be most wary in our acceptance of one philosophical 
doctrine and our rejection of another. 

On the other hand, philosophy is not a mere matter of in- 
tellectual curiosity. It has an intimate connection with fife. 
As a man thinks, so is he, to a great extent, at least. How, 
then, can one afford to remain critical and negative? To 
counsel this seems equivalent to advising that one abandon 
the helm and consent to float at the mercy of wind and tide. 

The difficulty is a very real one. It presents itself insistently 
to those who have attained to that degree of intellectual de- 
velopment at which one begins to ask oneself questions and 
to reflect upon the worth and meaning of life. An unreflective 
adherence to tradition no longer satisfies such persons. They 
wish to know why they should believe in this or that doctrine, 
and why they should rule their Hves in harmony with this or 
that maxim. Shall we advise them to lay hold without delay 
of a set of philosophical tenets, as we might advise a disabled 
man to aid himself with any staff that happens to come to hand ? 
Or shall we urge them to close their eyes to the Hght, and to 
go back again to the old unreflective life? 

Neither of these counsels seems satisfactory, for both assume 
tacitly that it does not much matter what the truth is, and that 
we can afford to disregard it. 

Perhaps we may take a suggestion from that prudent man 
and acute philosopher, Descartes. Discontented with the 
teachings of the schools as they had been presented to him, 



302 An Introduction to Philosophy 

he resolved to set out upon an independent voyage of discovery, 
and to look for a philosophy of his own. It seemed necessary 
to him to doubt, provisionally at least, all that he had received 
from the past. But in what house should he live while he was 
reconstructing his old habitation? Without principles of some 
sort he could not live, and without reasonable principles he 
could not live well. So he framed a set of provisional rules, 
which should guide his life until he had new ground beneath 
his feet. 

When we examine these rules, we find that, on the whole, 
they are such as the experience of mankind has found prudent 
and serviceable. In other words, we discover that Descartes, 
until he was in a position to see clearly for himself, was wil- 
ling to be led by others. He was a unit in the social order, 
and he recognized that truth. 

It does not seem out of place to recall this fact to the con- 
sciousness of those who are entering upon the reflective life. 
Those who are rather new to reflection upon philosophical 
matters are apt to seize single truths, which are too often half- 
truths, and to deduce their consequences remorselessly. They 
do not always realize the extreme complexity of society, or see 
the full meaning of the relations in which they stand to the 
state and to the church. Breadth of view can only come with 
an increase of knowledge and with the exercise of reflection. 

For this reason I advise patience, and a willingness to accept 
the established order of things until one is very sure that one 
has attained to some truth — some real truth, not a mere truth 
of election — which may serve as the basis of a reconstruction. 
The first glimpses of truth cannot be depended upon to furnish 
such a foundation. 

Thus, we may suspend judgment, and, nevertheless, be 
ready to act. But is not this a mere compromise? Certainly. 
All life is a compromise; and in the present instance it means 
only that we should keep our eyes open to the light, whatever 



Some Practical Admonitions 303 

its source, and yet should nourish that wholesome self-distrust 
that prevents a man from being an erratic and revolutionary- 
creature, unmindful of his own limitations. Prudent men in 
all walks in Hfe make this compromise, and the world is the 
better for it. 



NOTES 

Chapter I, §§ 1-5. If the student will take a good history of philosophy, 
and look ovel- the accounts of the different systems referred to, he will see 
the justice of the position taken in the text, namely, that philosophy was for- 
merly synon}TTious with universal knowledge. It is not necessary, of course, 
to read the whole history of philosophy to attain this end. One may take 
such a text-book as Ueberweg's "History of Philosophy," and run over the 
summaries contained in the large print. To see how the conception of 
what constitutes universal knowledge changed in successive ages, compare 
Thales, the Sophists, Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Bacon, and Descartes. 
For the ancient philosophy one may consult Windelband's "History of 
the Ancient Philosophy," a clear and entertaining little work (English 
translation, N.Y., 1899). 

In Professor Paulsen's "Introduction to Philosophy" (English transla- 
tion, N.Y., 1895), there is an interesting introductory chapter on "The 
Nature and Import of Philosophy" (pp. 1-41). The author pleads for 
the old notion of philosophy as universal knowledge, though he does not, 
of course, mean that the philosopher must be familiar with all the details 
of all the sciences. 

§ 6. In justification of the meaning given to the word "philosophy" in 
this section, I ask the reader to look over the hst of courses in philosophy 
advertised in the catalogues of our leading universities at home and abroad. 
There is a certain consensus of opinion as to what properly comes under 
the title, even among those who differ widely as to what is the proper defini- 
tion of philosophy. 

Chapter II, §§ 7-10. Read the chapter on "The Mind and the World 
in Common Thought and in Science" (Chapter I) in my "System of 
Metaphysics," N.Y., 1904. 

One can be brought to a vivid realization of the fact that the sciences 
proceed upon a basis of assumptions which they do not attempt to analyze 
and justify, if one will take some elementary work on arithmetic or geometry 
or psychology and examine the first few chapters, bearing in mind what 
philosophical problems may be drawn from the materials there treated. 
X 305 



3o6 An Introduction to Philosophy 

§ II. The task of reflective thought and its difficulties are treated in 
the chapter entitled "How Things are Given in Consciousness" (Chapter 
III), in my "System of Metaphysics." 

Chapter III, §§ 12-13. Read "The Inadequacy of the Psychological 
Standpoint," "System of Metaphysics," Chapter II. I call especial at- 
tention to the illustration of "the man in the cell" (pp. 18 ff.). It would 
be a good thing to read these pages with the class, and to impress upon the 
students the fact that those who have doubted or denied the existence of 
the external material world have, if they have fallen into error, fallen into a 
very natural error, and are not without some excuse. 

§ 14. See "The Metaphysics of the Telephone Exchange," "System 
of Metaphysics," Chapter XXII, where Professor Pearson's doctrine is 
examined at length, with quotations and references. 

It is interesting to notice that a doubt of the external world has always 
rested upon some sort of a "telephone exchange" argument; naturally, 
it could not pass by that name before the invention of the telephone, but 
the reasoning is the same. It puts the world at one remove, shutting the 
mind up to the circle of its ideas; and then it doubts or denies the world, 
or, at least, holds that its existence must be proved in some roundabout 
way. Compare Descartes, "Of the Existence of Material Things," 
"Meditations," VI. 

Chapter TV, §§ 15-18. See Chapters VI and VII, "What we mean by 
the External World," and "Sensations and 'Things,'" in my "System of 
Metaphysics." In that work the discussion of the distinction between the 
objective order of experience and the subjective order is completed in Chap- 
ter XXIII, "The Distinction between the World and the Mind." This 
was done that the subjective order might be treated in the part of the book 
which discusses the mind and its relation to matter. 

As it is possible that the reader may be puzzled by differences of ex- 
pression which obtain in the two books, a word of explanation is not out of 
place. 

In the "Metaphysics," for example, it is said that sensations so connect 
themselves together as to form what we call the system of material things 
(p. 105). It is intimated in a footnote that this is a provisional statement 
and the reader is referred to later chapters. Now, in the present book 
(§§ 16-17), it is taught that we may not call material things groups of sen- 
sations. 

The apparent contradiction is due to the fact that, in this volume, the 



Notes 307 

full meaning of the word "sensation" is exhibited at the outset, and sen- 
sations, as phenomena of the subjective order, are distinguished from 
the phenomena of the objective order which constitute the external 
world. In the earher work the word "sensation" was for a while used 
loosely to cover all our experiences that do not belong to the class called 
imaginary, and the distinction between the subjective and objective in this 
reahn was drawn later (Chapter XXIII). 

I think the present arrangement is the better one, as it avoids from the 
outset the suggestion that the real world is something subjective — our 
sensations or ideas — and thus escapes the ideahstic flavor which almost 
inevitably attaches to the other treatment, until the discussion is completed, 
at least. 

Chapter V, §§ 19-21. See Chapters VIII and IX, "System of Meta- 
physics," "The Distinction between Appearance and Reality" and "The 
Significance of the Distinction." 

§ 22. See Chapter XXVI, "The World as Unperceived, and the 'Un- 
knowable,'" where Spencer's doctrine is examined at length, and references 
are given. I think it is very important that the student should realize 
that the "Unknowable" is a perfectly useless assumption in philosophy ^ 
and can serve no purpose whatever. 

Chapter VI, §§ 23-25. See Chapters X and XI, "System of Meta- 
physics," "The Kantian Doctrine of Space" and "Difficulties connected 
with the Kantian Doctrine of Space." 

It would be an excellent thing for the student, after he has read the 
above chapters, to take up Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," and read 
and analyze the argument of Antinomies I and II, with the Observations 
appended. One can understand these arguments without being familiar 
with the "Critique" as a whole; at any rate, the account of Kant's phi- 
losophy contained in § 51 of this book will serve to explain his use of certain 
terms, such as "the laws of our sensibility." 

Kant's reasonings are very curious and interesting in this part of his 
book. It seems to be proved that the world must be endless in space and 
without a beginning or end in time, and just as plausibly proved that it 
cannot be either. It seems to be proved that finite spaces and times are 
infinitely divisible, and at the same time that they cannot be infinitely 
devisible. The situation is an amusing one, and rendered not the less 
amusing by the seriousness with which the mutually destructive arguments 
are taken. 



3o8 An Introduction to Philosophy 

When the student meets such a tangle in the writings of any philosopher, 
I ask him to believe that it is not the human reason that is at fault — at 
least, let him not assume that it is. The fault probably lies with a human 
reason. 

§ 26. See Chapter XII, "The Berkeleian Doctrine of Space," in my 
"System of Metaphysics." The argument ought not to be difficult to one 
who has mastered Chapter V of this volume. 

Chapter VII, §§ 27-29. Compare Chapter XIII, "System of Meta- 
physics," "Of Time." 

With the chapters on Space and Time it would be well for the student 
to read Chapter XIV, "The Real World in Space and Time," where it is 
made clear why we have no hesitation in declaring space and time to be 
infinite, although we recognize that it seems to be an assumption of knowl- 
edge to declare the material world infinite. 

Chapter VIII, §§ 30-32. Read, in the "System of Metaphysics," 
Chapters V and XVII, "The Self or Knower " and "The Atomic Self." 

§ 2)^. The suggestions, touching the attitude of the psychologist 
toward the mind, contained in the preface to Professor William James's 
"Psychology" are very interesting and instructive. 

Chapter IX, §§ 35-36. For a strong argument in favor of interaction- 
ism see James's "Psychology," Chapter V. I wish the student would, in 
reading it, bear in mind what is said in my chapter on "The Atomic Self," 
above referred to. The subject should be approached with an open mind, 
and one should suspend judgment until both sides have been heard from. 

§ 37. Descartes held that the lower animals are automata and that their 
actions are not indicative of consciousness; he regarded their bodies as 
machines lacking the soul in the "Httle pineal gland." Professor Huxley 
revived the doctrine of animal automatism and extended it so as to include 
man. He regarded consciousness as a "collateral product" of the work- 
ing of the body, related to it somewhat as is the steam-whistle of a locomo- 
tive engine to the working of the machine. He made it an effect, but not 
a cause, of motions. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XVIII, 
"The Automaton Theory: its Genesis." 

We owe the doctrine of parallehsm, in its original form, to Spinoza. It 
was elaborated by W. K. Clifford, and to him the modern interest in the 
subject is largely due. The whole subject is discussed at length in my 
"System of Metaphysics," Chapters XIX-XXI. The titles are: "The 



Notes 309 



Automaton Theory: Parallelism," "What is Parallelism?" and "The 
Man and the Candlestick.'' Clifford's doctrine is presented in a new form 
in Professor Strong's recent brilliant work, "Why the Mind has a Body," 
N.Y., 1903. 

§ 38. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XXIV, "The Time and 
Place of Sensations and Ideas." 

Chapter X, §§ 40-42. See " System of Metaphysics," Chapters XXVII 
and XXVIII, "The Existence of Other Minds," and "The Distribution of 
Minds." 

Writers seem to be divided into three camps on this question of other 
minds. 

(i) I have treated our knowledge of other minds as due to an injerencc. 
This is the position usually taken. 

(2) We have seen that Huxley and Clifford cast doubts upon the validity 
of the inference, but, nevertheless, made it. Professor Strong, in the work 
mentioned in the notes to the previous chapter, maintains that it is not an 
inference, and that we do not directly perceive other minds, but that we are 
assured of their existence just the same. He makes our knowledge an 
"intuition" in the old-fashioned sense of the word, a something to be ac- 
cepted but not to be accounted for. 

(3) Writers who have been influenced more or less by the Neo-Kantian 
or Neo -Hegelian doctrine are apt to speak as though we had the same 
direct evidence of the existence of other minds that we have of the existence 
of our own. I have never seen a systematic and detailed exposition of this 
doctrine. It appears rather in the form of hints dropped in passing. A 
number of such are to be found in Taylor's "Elements of IMetaphysics." 

§ 43. The "Mind-stuff" doctrine is examined at length and its origin 
discussed in Chapter XXXI of the "System of Metaphysics," "Mental 
Phenomena and the Causal Nexus." It is well worth while for the student 
to read the whole of Clifford's essay "On the Nature of Things-in -them- 
selves," even if he is pressed for time. 

Chapter XI, § 44. See "System of Metaphysics," Chapter XV, "The 
World as Mechanism." 

§ 45. See Chapter XXXI, "The Place of Mind in Nature." 
§ 46. For a definition of Fatalism, and a description of its difference 
from the scientific doctrine of Determinism, see Chapter XXXIII, "Fatal- 
ism, 'Freewill' and Detenninism." For a vigorous defense of "Freewill" 
(which is not, in my opinion, free will at all, in the common acceptation 



3IO An Introduction to Philosophy 

of the word) see Professor James's Essay on "The Dilemma of the Deter- 
minist," in his volume, "The Will to Believe." 

Fatalism and Determinism are constantly confused, and much of the 
opposition to Determinism is attributable to this confusion. 

§ 47. See Chapter XXXII, "Mechanism and Teleology." 

Chapter XII, § 48. The notes to Chapter III (see above) are in point 
here. It is well worth the student's while to read the whole of Chapter XI, 
Book IV, of Locke's "Essay." It is entitled "Of our Knowledge of the 
Existence of Other Things." Notice the headings of some of his sections : — 

§ I. "It is to be had only by sensation." 

§ 2. "Instance whiteness of this paper." 

§ 3. "This, though not so certain as demonstration, yet may be called 
'Knowledge,' and proves the existence of things without us." 

Locke's argument proceeds, as we have seen, on the assumption that we 
perceive external things directly, — an assumption into which he slips 
unawares, — and yet he cannot allow that we really do perceive directly 
what is external. This makes him uncomfortably conscious that he has 
not absolute proof, after all. The section that closes the discussion is en- 
titled: "Folly to expect demonstration in everything." 

§ 49. I wish that I could believe that every one of my readers would 
sometime give himself the pleasure of reading through Berkeley's "Prin- 
ciples of Himian Knowledge" and his "Three Dialogues between Hylas 
and Philonous." Clearness of thought, beauty of style, and elevation of 
sentiment characterize them throughout. 

The "Principles" is a systematic treatise. If one has not time to read 
it all, one can get a good idea of the doctrine by running through the first 
forty-one sections. For brief readings in class, to illustrate Berkeley's 
reasoning, one may take §§ 1-3, 14, 18-20, and 38. 

The "Dialogues" is a more popular work. As the etymology of the 
names in the title suggests, we have in it a dispute between a man who pins 
his faith to matter and an ideahst. The aim of the book is to confute 
skeptics and atheists from the standpoint of idealism. 

For Hume's treatment of the external world, see his "Treatise of Human 
Nature," Part IV, § 2. For his treatment of the mind, see Part IV, § 6. 

§ 50. Reid repeats himself a great deal, for he gives us asseveration rather 
than proof. One can get the gist of his argument by reading carefully a 
few of his sections. It would be a good exercise to read in class, if time 
permitted, the two sections of his "Inquiry" entitled "Of Extension" 
(Chapter V, § 5), and "Of Perception in General" (Chapter VI, § 20). 



Notes 311 

§ 51. For an account of the critical Philosophy, see Falckenberg's 
"History of Modern Philosophy" (English translation, N.Y., 1893). 
Compare with this the accounts in the histories of philosophy by Ueberweg 
and Hbffding (English translation of the latter, London, 1900). Full 
bibhographies are to be found especially in Ueberweg. 

It is well to look at the philosophy of Kant through more than one pair 
of eyes. Thus, if one reads Morris's "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" 
(Chicago, 1882), one should read also Sidgwick's "Lectures on the Philoso- 
phy of Kant" (N.Y., 1905). 

Chapter XIII, § 52. It is difficult to see how Hamilton could regard 
himself as a "natural" reahst (the word is employed by him). See his 
"Lectures on Metaphysics," VIII, where he develops his doctrine. He 
seems to teach, in spite of himself, that we can know directly only the im- 
pressions that things make on us, and must infer all else: "Our \yhole 
knowledge of mind and matter is, thus, only relative ; of existence, absolutely 
and in itself, we know nothing." 

Whom may we regard as representing the three kinds of "hypothetical 
reaUsm" described in the text? Perhaps we may put the plain man, who 
has not begun to reflect, in the first class. John Locke is a good represen- 
tative of the second; see the "Essay concerning Human Understanding," 
Book II, Chapter VIII. Herbert Spencer belonged to the third while he 
wrote Chapter V of his "First Principles of Philosophy." 

§ 53. I have said enough of the Berkeleian ideahsm in the notes on 
Chapter XII. As a good illustration of objective idealism in one of its 
forms I may take the doctrine of Professor Royce; see his address, "The 
Conception of God" (N.Y., 1902). 

Mr. Bradley's doctrine is criticised in Chapter XXXIV (entitled "Of 
God"), "System of Metaphysics." 

Chapter XIV, § 55. See "System of Metaphysics, " Chapter XVI, 
"The Insufficiency of MateriaHsm." 

§ 56. Professor Strong's volume, "Why the Mind has a Body " (N. Y., 
1903), advocates a panpsychism much like that of Clifford. It is very clearly 
written, and with Clifford's essay on "The Nature of Things-in-thcm- 
selves," ought to give one a good idea of the considerations that impel 
some able men to become panpsychists. 

§ 57. The pantheistic monism of Spinoza is of such importance his- 
torically that it is desirable to obtain a clear notion of its meaning . I have 
discussed this at length in two earlier works: "The Philosophy of Spinoza " 



312 A7t Introductio7i to Philosophy 

(N.Y., 1894) and "On Spinozistic Immortality." The student is referred 
to the account of Spinoza's "God or Substance" contained in these. See, 
especially, the "Introductory Note" in the back of the first-mentioned 
volume. 

Professor Royce is a good illustration of the idealistic monist; see the 
volume referred to in the note above (§ 53). His "Absolute," or God, is 
conceived to be an all-inclusive mind of which our finite minds are parts. 

§ 58. Sir William Hamilton's dualism is developed in his "Lectures on 
Metaphysics," VIII. He writes: "Mind and matter, as known or know- 
able, are only two different series of phenomena or qualities; as unknown 
and unknowable, they are the two substances in which these two different 
series of phenomena or qualities are supposed to inhere. The existence of 
an unknown substance is only an inference we are compelled to make, 
from the existence of known phenomena; and the distinction of two sub- 
stances is only inferred from the seeming incompatibility of the two series 
of phenomena to coinhere in one." 

Chapter XV, § 60. The reader will find Descartes's path traced in the 
"Meditations." In I, we have his sweeping doubt; in II, his doctrine as 
to the mind; in III, the existence of God is established; in VI, he gets 
around to the existence of the external world. We find a good deal of the 
"natural light" in the first part of his "Principles of Philosophy." 

§ 61. We have an excellent illustration of Locke's inconsistency in 
violating his own principles and going beyond experience, in his treatment 
of "Substance." Read, in his "Essay," Book I, Chapter IV, § 18, and 
Book II, Chapter XXIII, § 4. These sections are not long, and might well 
be read and analyzed in class. 

§ 62. See the note to § 51. 

§ 64. F. C. S. Schiller champions pragmatism in his volume entitled 
"Humanism " (London 1903). 

Chapter XVI, §§ 65-68. To see how the logicians have regarded their 
science and its relation to philosophy, see: Keynes's "Formal Logic" 
(London, 1894), Introduction; Hobhouse's "Theory of Knowledge" 
(London, 1896), Introduction; Aikins's "The Principles of Logic" (N.Y., 
1902), Introduction; and Creighton's "Introductory Logic" (N.Y., 1898), 
Preface. 

Professor Aikins writes: "Thus, in so far as logic tries to make us 
reason correctly by giving us correct conceptions of things and the way 
in which their relations involve each other, it is a kind of simple metaphysics 
studied for a practical end." 



Notes 3 1 3 

Professor Creighton says, "Although in treating the syllogistic logic I 
have followed to a large extent the ordinary mode of presentation, I have 
both here, and when deahng with the inductive methods, endeavored to 
interpret the traditional doctrines in a philosophical way, and to prepare 
for the theoretical discussions of the third part of the book." 

John Stuart Mill tried not to be metaphysical; but let the reader exam- 
ine, say, his third chapter, "Of the Things denoted by Names," or look 
over Book VI, in his "System of Logic." 

Professor Sigwart's great work, "Logik" (Freiburg, 2d edition. Volume 
I, 1889, Volume II, 1893), may almost be called a philosophy of logic. 

Chapter XVII, § 69. Compare with Professor James's account of the 
scope of psychology the following from Professor Baldwin: "The question 
of the relation of psychology to metaphysics, over which a fierce warfare 
has been waged in recent years, is now fairly settled by the adjustment of 
mutual claims. . . . The terms of the adjustment of which I speak are 
briefly these : on the one hand, empirical investigation must precede rational 
interpretation, and this empirical investigation must be absolutely un- 
hampered by fetters of dogmatism and preconception; on the other hand, 
rational interpretation must be equally free in its own province, since prog- 
ress from the individual to the general, from the detached fact to its uni- 
versal meaning, can be secured only by the judicious use of hypotheses, 
both metaphysical and speculative. Starting from the empirical we run 
out at every step into the metempirical." "Handbook of Psychology," 
Preface, pp. iii and iv. 

Chapter XVIII, § 71. The teacher might very profitably take ex- 
tracts from the two chapters of Whewell's "Elements of Morality" referred 
to in the text, and read them with the class. It is significant of the weak- 
ness of Whewell's position that he can give us advice as long as we do not 
need it, but, when we come to the cross-roads, he is compelled to leave the 
matter to the individual conscience, and gives us no hint of a general prin- 
ciple that may guide us. 

§ 72. Wundt, in his volume "The Facts of the Moral Life" (N.Y., 
1897), tries to develop an empirical science of ethics independent of meta- 
physics; see the Preface. 

Compare with this: Martineau's "Types of Ethical Theory " (London, 
1885), Preface; T. H. Green's "Prolegomena to Ethics," Introduction; 
Muirhead's "The Elements of Ethics" (N.Y., 1892); Mackenzie's "A 
Manual of Ethics " (London, 1893) ; Jodl's "Geschichte der Ethik " (Stutt- 



314 ^^^ hitroduction to Philosophy 

gart, 1882), Preface. I give but a few references, but they will serve to 
illustrate how close, in the opinion of ethical writers, is the relation between 
ethics and philosophy. 

Chapter XIX, § 74. The student who turns over the pages of several 
works on metaphysics may be misled by a certain superficial similarity 
that is apt to obtain among them. One sees the field mapped out into 
Ontology (the science of Being or Reality), Rational Cosmology, and 
Rational Psychology. These titles are mediaeval landmarks which have 
been left standing. I may as well warn the reader that two men who dis- 
course of Ontology may not be talking about the same thing at all. Bear 
in mind what was said in § 57 of the different ways of conceiving the "One 
Substance"; and bear in mind also what was said in Chapter V of the 
proper meaning of the word "reahty." 

I have discarded the above titles in my "System of Metaphysics," be- 
cause I think it is better and less misleading to use plain and unambiguous 
language. 

§ 75. See the note to Chapter XVI. 

Chapter XX, §§ 76-77. One can get an idea of the problems with which 
the philosophy of religion has to deal by turning to my "System of Meta- 
physics" and reading the two chapters entitled "Of God," at the close of 
the book. It would be interesting to read and criticise in class some of the 
theistic arguments that philosophers have brought forward. Quotations 
and references are given in Chapter XXXIV. 

Chapter XXI, §§ 78-79. What is said of the science of logic, in Chapter 
XVI, has, of course, a bearing upon these sections. I suggest that the 
student examine a few chapters of "The Grammar of Science"; the book 
is very readable. 

Chapter XXII, §§ 80-82. The reader will find in lectures I and II in 
Sir William Hamilton's "Lectures on Metaphysics" a discussion of the 
utility of philosophy. It has a pleasant, old-fashioned flavor, and contains 
some good thoughts. What is said in Chapters XVI-XXI of the present 
volume has a good deal of bearing upon the subject. See especially what 
is said in the chapters on logic, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. 

Chapter XXIII, §§ 83-87. There is a rather brief but good and 
thoughtful discussion of the importance of historical study to the compre- 



Notes 315 

hension of philosophical doctrines in Falckenberg's "History of Modem 
Philosophy" (Enghsh translation, N.Y., 1893); see the Introduction. 

We have a good illustration of the fact that there may be parallel streams 
of philosophic thought (§ 87) when we turn to the Stoics and the Epicu- 
reans. Zeno and Epicurus were contemporaries, but they were men of 
very dissimilar character, and the schools they founded differed widely in 
spirit. Zeno went back for his view of the physical world to Heraclitus, 
and for his ethics to the Cynics. Epicurus borrowed his fundamental 
thoughts from Democritus. 

On the other hand, philosophers may sometimes be regarded as links 
in the one chain. Witness the series of German thinkers: Kant, Fichte, 
Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer; or the series of British thinkers: Locke, 
Berkeley, Hume, Mill. Herbert Spencer represents a confluence of the 
streams. The spirit of his doctrine is predominantly British; but he got 
his "Unknowable" from Kant, through Hamilton and Mansel. 

At any point in a given stream there may be a division. Thus, Kant 
was awakened to his creative effort by Hume. But Mill is also the successor 
of Hume, and more truly the successor, for he carries on the traditional way 
of approaching philosophical problems, while Kant rebels against it, and 
heads a new Una. 

Chapter XXIV, § § 88-93. I hardly think it is necessary for me to com- 
ment upon this chapter. The recommendations amount to this: that a 
man should be fair-minded and reasonable, free from partisanship, cautious, 
and able to suspend judgment where the evidence is not clear; also that, 
where the light of reason does not seem to him to shine brightly and to il- 
lumine his path as he could wish, he should be influenced in his actions by 
the reflection that he has his place in the social order, and must meet the 
obHgations laid upon him by this fact. When the pragmatist emphasizes 
the necessity of accepting ideals and livirig by them, he is doing us a service. 
But we must see to it that he does not lead us into making arbitrary deci- 
sions and feeling that we are released from the duty of seeking for evidence. 
Read together §§ 64, 91, and 93. 



INDEX 



Absolute, The: Spencer's doctrine of, 70; 

Bradley's, 191-192; meanings of the 

word, 201; reference, 312. 
Activity and Passivity : meaning of, 159- 

161; confused with cause and effect, 

159-161; activity of mind, 162-163. 
^Esthetics : a philosophical discipline, 

242-243. 
Agnosticism: 202. 
Aikins: 312. 

Albert the Great: scope of his labors, 9. 
Analytical Judgments : defined, 178. 
Anaxagoras : his doctrine, 4; on the 

soul, 1 01. 
Anaximander : his doctrine, 3. 
Anaximenes : his doctrine, 3; on the soul, 

lOI. 

Appearances : doubt of their objectivity, 
35; realities and, 59 ff. ; apparent 
and real space, 80-87; apparent and 
real time, 93-99; apparent and real 
extension, 113; measurement of ap- 
parent time, 128; appearance and 
reality, Bradley's doctrine, 191-192. 

Aristotle: reference to Thales, 3; scope 
of his philosophy, 7; authority in the 
Middle Ages, 9; on the soul, 102-103. 

Arithmetic: compared with logic, 225- 
226. 

Atoms: nature of our knowledge of, 22- 
23; also, 65-67; doctrine of Democ- 
ritus, 194-195. 

Augustine: on time as past, present, and 
future, 90 ff. ; on soul and body, 104; 
as scientist and as philosopher, 278. 

Authority: in philosophy, 291-296. 

Automatism : the automaton theory, 129- 
130; animal automatism, 141-142; 
activity of mind and automatism, 162; 
references, 308-309. 

Automaton: see Automatism. 

Bacon, Francis: his conception of 
philosophy, 10. 

Baldwin: on psychology and meta- 
physics, 313. 



Berkeley: referred to, 56; on appearance 
and reality, 61-63; ^^^ ideahsm, 168- 
170; his theism, 190-19 1; references 
to his works, 310. 

Body and Mind : see Mind and Body. 

Bosanquet: his logic, 225. 

Bradley: his "Absolute," 191-192; ref- 
erence given, 311. 

Breath: mind conceived to be, loi. 

Cassiodorus : on soul and body, 103-104. 

Cause and Effect: meaning of words, 118- 
120; relation of mental and material 
not causal, 121-126; see also, 152; 
cause and effect, activity and passivity, 
159 ff. 

Child: its knowledge of the world, 18-19. 

Cicero: Pythagoras' use of word "philos- 
opher," 2; on immortality, 32. 

Clifford, W. K. : on infinite divisibility of 
space, 79-80; on other minds, 135; 
on mind-stuff, 144-146; his panpsj'- 
chism, 197-198; his parallelism, 308- 
309; references on mind-stuff, 309. 

Common Sense: notions of mind and 
body, 106 ff. ; Reid's doctrine, 171- 
174; common sense ethics, 236-240. 

Common Thought: what it is, 18-20. 

Concomitance: see Mind and Body. 

Copernican System: 282. 

Cornelius: on metaphysics, 249. 

Creighton: 313. 

Critical Empiricism: the doctrine, 218- 
219. 

Critical Philosophy: outlined, 175-180; 
criticised, 21 1-2 18; references, 311. 

Croesus: i. 

Democritus: doctrine referred to, 4; his 
place in the history of philosophy, 5; 
on the soul, 101-102; his materialism 
examined, 194-195. 

Descartes: conception of philosophy, 10; 
on mind and body, 105-106; also, 119; 
on animal automatism, 141-142; on 
the external world, 163-168; on sub- 



317 



3i8 



Index 



stance, 198; his rationalism, 206-209; 

the "natural light," 208; his attempt 

at a critical philosophy, 214; his rules 

of method, 214; provisional rules of 

life, 301-302; reference given, 306; 

reference to his automatism, 308; 

references to the "Meditations," 312. 
Determinism: 155-159; references, 309- 

310. 
Dogmatism: Kant's use of term, 211- 

212. 
Dualism: what, 193; varieties of, 202- 

204; the present volume dualistic, 

204; Hamilton's, 312. 

Eleatics : their doctrine, 4. 

Empedocles : his doctrine, 4; a pluralist, 
205. 

Empiricism: the doctrine, 209-211; 
Kant on, 212; critical empiricism, 
218-219. 

Energy: conservation of, 151-154. 

Epicureans: their view of philosophy, 
7-8; their materialism, 102. 

Epiphenomenon : the mind as, 162. 

Epistemology: its place among the philo- 
sophical sciences, 247-249. 

Ethics: and the mechanism of nature, 
159-164; common sense ethics, 236- 
240; Whewell criticised, 238-240; 
philosophy and, 240-242; utility of, 
265-267; references, 313-314. 

Evidence: in philosophy, 296-298. 

Existence: of material things, 56-58; 
also, 165-192. 

Experience: suggestions of the word, 58; 
Hume's doctrine of what it yields, 
1 70-1 71; Descartes and Locke, 178; 
Kant's view of, 179; empiricism, 209- 
211; critical empiricism, 218-219. 

Experimental Psychology: its scope, 234- 

235- 

Explanation: of relation of mind and 
body, 125-126. 

External World: its existence, 32 ff. ; 
plain man's knowledge of, 32-36; 
psychologist's attitude, 36-38; the 
"telephone exchange," 38-44; what 
the external world is, 45-58; its 
existence discussed, 56-58; a mecha- 
nism, 147-150; knowledge of, theo- 
ries, 165-180; Descartes on, 207- 
208; psychologist's attitude discussed, 
230-234- 



Falckenberg : 311, 3x5. 

Fate: 158; literature on fatahsm, 309- 
310. 

Fichte: on philosophic method, 10; 
soHpsistic utterances, 133. 

Final Cause: what, 161. 

"Form" and '' Matter" : the distinction 
between, 82-83; space as "form," 
82-84; time as "form," 94; Kant's 
doctrine of "forms," 179; the same 
criticised, 216-217. 

Free-will: and the order of nature, 154- 
159; determinism and " free-will-ism," 
155-159; Uterature referred to, 309- 
310. 

God: revealed in the world, 163-164; 
Berkeley on argument for, 190-191; 
Spinoza on God or substance, 199; 
Descartes' argument for, 208; influ- 
ence of belief on ethics, 241 ; concep- 
tions of, 252-253; relation to the 
world, 253-254; monistic conception 
of, 312; references, 314. 

Greek Philosophy: Pre-Socratic charac- 
terized, 2-5 ; conception of philosophy 
from Sophists to Aristotle, 5-7; the 
Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics, 7-8. 

Green, T. H.: 218, 313. 

Hamilton, Sir W.: on space, 76; on the 

external world, 174; also, 182; 

reference, 311; his dualism, 312; on 

utility of philosophy, 314. 
Hegel: his conception of philosophy, 11; 

an objective idealist, 190. 
Heraclitus: his doctrine, 4; on the soul, 

lOI. 

Herodotus: 1-2. 

History of Philosophy: much studied, 

273-274; its importance, 274-281; 

how to read it, 281-287; references, 

314-315- 
Hobhouse: on theory of knowledge, 248; 

reference, 312. 
Hoffding: his monism, 200-201; his 

history of philosophy, 311. 
Howison: on pluralism, 205. 
Humanism: referred to, 312. 
Hume: his doctrine, 170-171; use of 

word "impression," 177; influence on 

Kant, 177-178. 
Huxley: on other minds, 135, 138; on 

automatism, 308. 



Index 



319 



Hypothetical Realism: see Realism. 

Idealism: in Berkeley and Hume, 168- 
171; general discussion of the varie- 
ties of, 187-192; proper attitude 
toward, 289-291. 

Ideas: distinguished from things, 33-36; 
in psychology, 36-38; Berkeley's use 
of the word, 168-170; Hume's use 
of the word, 177. 

Imagination: contrasted with sense, 45- 
49; extension of imagined things, 113. 

Immateriality : of mind, see Plotinus, and 
Mind. 

Impression: Hume's use of word, 177. 

Infinity: infinity and infinite divisibility 
of space, 73-80; of time, 88-90; 
also, 95-97; mathematics and, 226. 

Inside: meaning of word, 55. 

Interactionism : see Mind and Body. 

Intuitionalists : defined, 240. 

Ionian School: 3. 

James, W.: on pragmatism, 220-222; 

on psychology and metaphysics, 230- 

231 ; on interactionism, reference, 308; 

on "free-will," 309-310. 
Jevons: his logic, 224; on study of 

scientific method, 256. 
Jodl: 313. 

Kant: on space, 75; his critical philoso- 
phy, 175-180; his philosophy criti- 
cised, 211-218; references to, 307, 

3"- 
Keynes: 312. 

Localization: of sensations, what, 127. 

Locke, John: on doubt of external world, 
32; on substance, 108; on percep- 
tion of external world, 166-168; his 
empiricism, 209-210; his attempt at 
a critical philosophy, 215-216; on 
innate moral principles, 240; refer- 
ence to "Essay," 310; his hypothetical 
realism, 311; treatment of substance, 
references, 312. 

Logic: the traditional, 224; "modern" 
logic, 224-225; Jevons and Bosanquet 
referred to, 224-225; philosophy and, 
225-229; compared with arithmetic, 
225-227; deeper problems of, 227; 
Spencer cited, 228; utility of, 264- 
265; references, 312-313. 



Lucretius: his materialistic psychology, 
102. 

Mach: 14. 

Mackenzie: 313. 

Malebranche: referred to, 142. 

Martineau: 313. 

Materialism: primitive man's notion of 
mind, loo-ioi; materialism in the 
Greek philosophy, 101-102; refuta- 
tion of, 1U-132; general account of, 
194-197. 

Mathematics : nature of mathematical 
knowledge, 23-25; arithmetic com- 
pared with logic, 225-226; mathe- 
matical relations and cause and effect, 
257; mathematical methods, 256- 

257- 

Matter: what is meant by material things, 
51-58; the material world a mechan- 
ism, 147-150. 

' ' Matter " and "Form" : see "Form" 
and "Matter." 

McCosh: on mind and body, 120. 

Mechanism: the material world a, 147- 
150; objections to the doctrine, 148- 
150; mind and mechanism, 1 51-154; 
mechanism and morals, 159-164; 
mechanism and teleology, reference, 
310. 

Metaphysician: on the mind, iii flf. 

Metaphysics : psychology and, 230-234; 
distinguished from philosophy, 244- 
245; uncertainty of, 247; utility of, 
269-272; traditional divisions of, 314. 

Method: scientific method, 256-259. 

Middle Ages: view of philosophy in, 
8-9. 

Mill, J. S.: the argument for other 
minds, 136-138; on permanent possi- 
bilities of sensation, 289; his logic. 

Mind: the child's notion of, 100; re- 
garded as breath, loi ; suggestions of 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew words for 
mind or soul, loi ; materialistic views 
of, in Greek philosophy, 101-102; 
Plato and Aristotle on nature of, 102- 
103; doctrine of Plotinus, 103; of 
Cassiodorus, 103; of Augustine, 104; 
of Descartes, 105-106; modern com- 
mon sense notions of mind, 106-110; 
mind as substance, Locke ciuoted, 
108-109; psychologist's notion of, 



320 



Index 



iio-iii; what the mind is, II i-i 14; 
place of mind in nature, 1 51-154; 
minds active, 162-163; see also, 
Mind and Body, and Other Minds. 

Mind and Body : is the mind in the body, 
115-117; plain man's notion of, 116; 
interactionism, 117-121; doctrine of 
Descartes and his successors, 119- 
120; plain man as interactionist, 120; 
McCosh quoted, 120-121; objection 
to interactionism, 121; parallelism, 
121-126; its foundation in experience, 
123-124; meaning of word "con- 
comitance," 123-125; time and place 
of mental phenomena, 126-129; 
objections to parallelism, 129-132; 
Clifford's parallehsm criticised, 130; 
mental phenomena and causality, 
129; double sense of word "con- 
comitance," 131-132; mind and the 
mechanism of the world, 1 51-154; 
mechanism and morals, 159-164; 
"concomitant phenomena" and at- 
tainment of ends, 162; references 
given on other minds and mind-stuff, 
309; see also. Other Minds. 

Mind-stuff : see Other Minds. 

Minima Sensibilia: 87. 

Modern Philosophy: conception of phi- 
losophy in, 9-12. 

Monism: what, 193-194; varieties of, 
194-202; narrower sense of word, 
198-202. 

Moral Distinctions: their foundation, 
159-164. 

Muirhead: 313. 

Naive Realism: 181. 

"Natural Light": term used by Des- 
cartes, 208. 

Natural Realism: see Realism. 

Nature: place of mind in, 1 51-154; 
order of nature and "free-will," 154- 

159- 
Neo-Platonism: referred to, 8; on the 

soul as immaterial, 103. 
Nihilism: word used by Hamilton, 186. 
Noumena: see Phenomena. 

Objective Idealism: 189-190; reference 

to Royce, 311. 
Objective Order: contrasted with the 

subjective, 55. 
Ontology: what, 314. 



Orders of Experience: the subjective and 
the objective, 55; see also, 114. 

Other Minds: their existence, 133-136; 
Fichte referred to, 133; Richter 
quoted, 133; Huxley and Clifford on 
proof of, 135; the argument for, 136- 
140; Mill quoted, 136-138; Huxley 
criticised, 138-140; what minds are 
there? 140-144; Descartes quoted, 
141-142; Malebranche, 142; the 
limits of psychic hfe, 142-144; mind- 
stuff, 144-146; proper attitude toward 
solipsism, 291. 

Outside: meaning of word, 55. 

Panpsychism: the doctrine, 198; refer- 
ences given, 311. 

Pantheism: 202. 

Parallelism : see Mind and Body. 

Paulsen: on nature of philosophy, 305. 

Pearson: the "telephone exchange," 
38 ff.; on scientific principles and 
method, 258-259; reference given, 
306. 

Peirce, C. S.: on pragmatism, 219-220. 

Perception: see Representative Per- 
ception. 

Phenomena and Noumena: Kant's dis- 
tinction between, 176-180. 

Philosophical Sciences: enumerated, 13; 
why grouped together, 13-17; ex- 
amined in detail, 223-259. 

Philosophy: meaning of word, and his- 
tory of its use, I ff.; what the word 
now covers, 12-17; problems of, 32- 
164; historical background of modern 
philosophy, 165-180; types of, 181- 
222; logic and, 225-229; psychology 
and, 230-234; ethics and, 240-242; 
aesthetics and, 242-243 ; metaphysics 
distinguished from, 244-245; re- 
ligion and, 250-254; the non-philo- 
sophical sciences and, 255-259; util- 
ity of, 263-272; history of, 273-287; 
verification in, 276-277; as poetry 
and as science, 281-283; how sys- 
tems arise, 283-287; practical ad- 
monitions, 288-303; authority in, 
291-296; ordinary rules of evidence 
in, 296-298. 

Physiological Psychology: what it is, 234. 

Pineal Gland: as seat of the soul, 105. 

Place: of mental phenomena, see Space. 

Plain Man: his knowledge of the world, 



Index 



321 



19-20; also, 32-36; his knowledge 
of space, 73; on mind and body, 106- 
iio; his interactionism, 120. 

Plants: psychic life in, 143. 

Plato: use of word "philosopher," 2; 
scope of his philosophy, 6-7 ; on the 
soul, 102-103. 

Plotinus: the soul as immaterial, 103. 

Pluralism and Singularism : described, 
204-205. 

Poetry and Philosophy : 281-283. 

Poincar'e: referred to, 258. 

Pragmatism: the doctrine, 219-222; 
see also, 296-298, and 300-303; will 
to believe, references, 310, 312. 

Present: meaning of "the present," 97- 
99. 

Psychology: psychological knowledge 
characterized, 25-28; attitude of 
psychologist toward external world, 
36-38; toward mind, iio-iii; phi- 
losophy and, 230-234; double af- 
filiation of, 234-235; utility of, 268- 
269; metaphysics and, 313; "ra- 
tional," 314. 

Ptolemaic System: 282. 

Pythagoras: the word " philosopher," 2. 

Pythagoreans : their doctrine, 4. 

Qualities of Things: contrasted with 
sensations, 51-56. 

Rational Cosmology: 314. 

Rationalism: the doctrine, 206-209. 

Rational Psychology: 314. 

Real: see Reality. 

Realism: hypothetical realism, 16S; 
"natural" realism, 174; general dis- 
cussion of realism and its varieties, 
181-187; ambiguity of the word, 186- 
187. 

Reality: contrasted with appearance, 35; 
in psychology, 36-38; the "telephone 
exchange" and, 38 fif. ; things and 
their appearances, 59-61; real things, 
61-63; ultimate real things, 63-68; 
the "Unknowable" as Reality, 68- 
72; real space, 80-87; real time, 93- 
99; substance as reality, in; real 
and apparent extension, 1 13-1 14; 
measurement of apparent time, 128; 
Bradley's doctrine of reality, 191-192; 
Clifford's panpsychism and reahty, 
197-198. 



Reflective Thought: its nature, 28-31. 

Reid, Thomas: doctrine of "common 
sense," 171-174; references, 310. 

Religion: philosophy and, 250-254; con- 
ceptions of God, 252-253; God 
and the world, 253-254; see God. 

Representative Perception: plain man's 
position, 32-36; the psychologist, 
36-38; "telephone exchange" doc- 
trine, 38-44; the true distinction 
between sensations and things, 45- 
58; the doctrine of, 165-168; Des- 
cartes and Locke quoted, 165-168. 

Richter, Jean Paul: on the solipsist, 133. 

Royce: an objective idealist, 311; a 
monist, 312. 

Schelling: attitude toward natural phi- 
losophy, 10. 

Schiller: on "Humanism," 312. 

"Schools" : in philosophy, 291-296. 

Science: philosophy and the special 
sciences, 12-17; the philosophical 
sciences, 13 ff. ; nature of scientific 
knowledge, 21-28; compared with re- 
flective thought, 29-31; science and 
the world as mechanism, 148; the 
conservation of energy, 151-154; 
philosophical sciences examined in 
detail, 223-259; science and meta- 
physical analysis, 246-247; the non- 
philosophical sciences and philosophy, 
255-259; study of scientific principles, 
256-259; verification in science and. 
in philosophy, 275-277; philosophy 
as science, 281-283. 

Scientific Knowledge : see Science. 

Sensations : knowledge of things through, 
33-44; sense and imagination con- 
trasted, 45-49; are "things" groups 
of, 49-51; distinction between things 
and, 51-56; use of the word in this 
volume and in the "System of Meta- 
physics," 306-307. 

Sidgwick: on Kant, 311. 

Sigwart: 313. 

Singularism and Pluralism: described, 
204-205. 

Skeptics: their view of philosophy, 7-8; 
their doubt of realit)'', 59; Hume's 
skepticism, 171. 

Socrates: use of words "philosopher" 
and " philosophy," 2; attitude toward 
sophism, 6. 



322 



Index 



Solipsism: see Other Minds. 

Solon: I. 

Sophists: characterized, 6. 

Soul: see Mind. 

Space: plain man's knowledge of, 73; 
said to be necessary, infinite and in- 
finitely divisible, 73-74; discussion of 
it as necessary and as infinite, 74-77; 
Kant, Hamilton, and Spencer quoted, 
75-77; as infinitely divisible, the 
moving point, 77-80; Clifford quoted, 
79-80; real space and apparent, 80- 
87; "matter" and "form," 82-84; 
extension of imaginary things, 113; 
place of mental phenomena, 115-117, 
also, 126-129. 

Spencer, Herbert: his definition of 
philosophy, 1 1 ; his work criticised, 
11-12; on the "Unknowable" as 
ultimate Reality, 69-70; Spencer as 
"natural" realist, 174; influenced by 
Kant's doctrine, 176; his inconsistent 
doctrine of the external world, 183- 
184; defective logic, 228; influence 
of agnosticism, 271; references given, 

307. 3"- 

Spinoza: his a priori method, 10; on 
God or substance, 199; his rational- 
ism, 208; his parallelism, 308; ref- 
erences, 31 1-3 1 2. 

Spiritualism: the doctrine, 197-198. 

Stoics: their view of philosophy, 7-8; 
their materialism, 102. 

Strong: on other minds, 209; references 
to, 309, 311. 

Subjective Idealism: 187-188. 

Subjective Order: contrasted with ob- 
jective, 55. 

Substance: meaning of word, 108; 
Locke on, 108; mind as substance, 
111-112; doctrine of the One Sub- 
stance, 198-202. 

Synthetic Judgments : defined, 179. 

Systems of Philosophy: their relations to 
each other, 283-287. 

Taylor: on other minds, 309. 
Teleology: what, 163; reference, 310. 
''^Telephone Exchange" : doctrine of the 
external world as "messages," 38-44. 
Thales: his doctrine, 3. 



Theism: see God. 

Theory of Knowledge : see Epistemology. 

Things: our knowledge of, 18-23; con- 
trast of ideas and, 33-36; same con- 
trast in psychology, 36-38; sensations 
and things, 45 ff. ; existence of, 56- 
58; contrasted with appearances, 
59 ff. ; real things, 61 ff. ; the space of 
real things, 80-87. 

Thomas Aquinas: scope of his labors, g. 

Time: as necessary, infinite, and in- 
finitely divisible, 88-90; problem of 
knowing past, present, and future, 
90-93; Augustine quoted, 90-91; 
timeless self criticised, 92-93; real 
time and apparent, 93-99; real time 
as necessary, infinite, and infinitely 
divisible, 95-97; consciousness of 
time, 97-99; mental phenomena and 
time, 126-129. 

Timeless Self: 92-93. 

Touch: the real world revealed in ex- 
periences of, 61-63. 

Truth: pragmatism and, 219-222; 
Whewell on veracity, 238-239: cri- 
terion of truth in philosophy, 296- 
298; also, 300-303. 

Ueberweg: 305, 311. 
Ultimate Reality: see Reality. 
"Unknowable" : as Reality, 68-72; see 

Spencer. 
Utility: of liberal studies, 260-263; of 

philosophy, 263-272. 

Verification: in science and in philoso- 
phy, 275-277. 

Ward, James: on concepts of mechanics, 
148. 

"Weltweisheit" : philosophy as, 12. 

Whewell: his common sense ethics, 236- 
240; referred to, 313. 

Will: see Free-will. 

Will to Believe: see Pragmatism. 

Windelband: 305. 

Wolff, Christian: definition of philoso- 
phy, 10. 

World: see External World. 

Wundt: ethics referred to, 313. 



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